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I saw an orange
I saw an orange hanging on a tree And I fainted. It was real, it wasn't painted. The tender terrible splendor, the engineering, The art. It strikes the heart Like a cymbal, a symbol.
dawn song
reading Reading the OED
reading Reading the OED
calder
Dear Ammon Shea,
dictleasure .. the leisurely, treasured pleasure of reading a dictionary, most keenly the OED.
sheaman .. a person trained in the occult crafts and skills
of dictionary reading; coin from Ammon Shea's account of his fabulous
ascent of Mt. OED.
There should be a word for the muyyum [my only palindrome: muy yum] of reading Shea's Reading the OED
lying comfily on my back at 12:53:22 pm pst on Feb 19 2010, a day
before my erstwhile mother's 90th birthday with my chin buried in 14
yr. old tiny beloved Burmese Frolic's shoulder-fur as she lies purring
on my chest under my chin. A momentaryist, a momentaryissimaist, perhaps, one sequentially captured by each pearl of a moment lustrously passing.
cf funesist [foo-nay-sist] from Borges' story in Labyrinths,
'Funes.' Funes was bewildered that there was the same word for the dog
sleeping in the sun-struck village street at 2:15pm as for that dog at
2:16pm. The origamiing, magical folding of the thunder-strikingly
gem-like panoply ought startle and re-startle.
You'll be drolled that when I was in high school in these tiny
classes of seven kids, I thought I was funny. I was. But sometimes a
teacher would have had enough of my on-going commentary and I would be
“punished” by having to copy an entire page of the dictionary after
lunch while everyone else went out riding. Little did they know that my
CED, chronic etymology disease, was contracted then. I won't buy any
dictionary which doesn't have 'woven song' as the ety of 'rhapsody.'
In the vile poverty of college years, I was going to buy an
Unabridged anyway. I was contemplating a big fat one and saw that It
had “zeus” and “apollo” with “usu. cap.” I ended up calling the
company & they apparently sold their own separate “Biographical
Dictionary.” Broke my heart that the real dictionary makers were
humiliated into putting “usu. cap.” On the other hand, in those days I
saw a blessed book I referred to as The New Century edited by Whitney
at Yale. For 'argus-pheasant,' it had the longlong tail actually
dropping down the column and other defs were written to it. I remember
trembling.
In my 20s, I got a copy of the first edition of the “malicious”
microprint OED, my pride in which slew legions of buttons. It was
FrissonLand for sure. I'm 99% sure it was stolen by villain (&
smelly) brother-in-law who lived with my ex-third husband and me for
one year and never said “Thank you.” A nefandous year, really. I was
delighted that the oed had a vast section of “Spurious Words.” Like who
else would get to say that?
Suppose 'wh' were a prefix? isper; eddle.
incalcowow — the incalculably stupendous joie that one gets reading Reading the OED,
luxuriously waking and falling asnooze of a weekday afternoon, tinct
with the wicked vagant frissony myyumminess of going to a weekday
matinee of A Fish called Wanda, feeling like one is eating eclairs whether or not one is actually licking chocolaty custard off one's lips.
Screw oysters, chocolate, pulverized panda balls — the oed is the
aphrodisiacal elixir, quintelixir. (When a word goes to lower case,
it's a made word — cf quisling; google.)
Re the matutinal
and their insufferable attitude, be consoled that eternity is very long
and they get theirs. I fondly imagine an 11PM meeting in which one
frequently cattle-prods them awake, oh frabjous joy.
paltry .. dictionarys willing to not be the OED. As in who decides which words to extirpate?
giftfish .. selfishly give presents to oneself (one's elf) as in running to Amazon to buy Reading the OED
so one can have a copy to mark up with sly wrys in the margins &
with fluorescent daffodil-yellow Bic highliters & have in the
bathroom to illuminate shiturient episodes de vie. Being a Bathroom
Book is the highest honor. Also sent two to friends with a clue.
halcyon .. the kind of sweet day in which a kingfisher can
make her nest upon the bosom of the sea; also the externally shockingly
swift but internally vividly serene passage of time while reading
RTOED or seeing Avatar3D both the 1st & 2nd times.
cat .. a mystic tho not mythic beast at once liquid & solid; 'Frolic,' the name of my silver cat, means “swift gladness.” Catilex,
catilexing is luxuriously reading a book on dictionaries, supine with
one's soft silver Burmese cat, Frolic, perched on one's chest, purring
under one's chins.
nooner — truffle-pigging thru the oed is a voluptuous treat in any spare time;
I define 'multiverse' — multi-verse — as many-poem place.
I
was contemplating wistfully (zero upper teeth left) the
gnashing-one's-teeth words, now erstwhile, idly wondering if they too
begin with a silent 'g'? (ranch, rassil, rent, ristbite) or do they
echo my droll 'guh-nash' when (I swear) there's a Wagnerian knock at my
recluse door. I mumpishly haul myself out of my warm cocoon,
distressing also the sleepish cat. Infernal who thinks it's okay to
pound on the door before noon on a Saturday? It is, unbless them, the
putative Witnesses (never any photos) of Jehovah, damned lucky I didn't
besmote them, & I would have bespawled them but you can't spit very
far anymore sans teeth. Bedrooling people is less fiery.
Re prefixes, I've long loved that 'for' is an intensifier and
before it got wistfullized, 'forlorn' meant 'deeply deeply lost.' Years
went by before it occurred to me that 'forgive' must mean 'deeply
deeply give.' Not that I do it ever, but I like grokking it.
When I was writing savage essays about Sicker Dick Cheney &
Karl Boy, I discovered that 'scruple' meant 'a pebble in the shoe.'
Doing a wrong thing would bother you (not them) with every step.
Some-horrible-how I lost where I found the medieval “Let them re-eat
their own vomit,” as wildly useful as “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln,
how did you like the play?” No amount of Advanced Search can find it
for me.
It's such a drag to have this book end. The word that
springbokkedly sprang to mind when I closed the covers of RTOED was a
neon !Thanks!
Sequel?
Your fondest fan,
Plunder Wonder 2010
**
If you're too jaded
To wade thru the joyous accolades
For our darling Planet,
The more vicious, and also delicious,
Politics is nearer the end, friend.
For me, the one allows me
To cope with the other . . .
**
Plunder Wonder
In a sugar plum-colored daze,
May the bounty of days amaze.
The sheep's plush fleece, the gossip of geese,
The cat purrs, licking her elegant whiskers.
Clowns somersault, salts clown around.
We're lucky to have towels and trowels and vowels.
Pluck luck from your pudding like plums.
Succumb to plums. Steal style.
Flaunt jauntiness. Hail heartiness.
Be tickled by pickles, relish fellowship.
Butter is better. More butter is best.
When you feel insane,
Butter your brain
With extra vaganzas,
Unleash a plethora of euphoria.
Pirate the treasure of pleasure.
Saddle up, pard, and rope them days,
A hot bath, forgiven wrath.
Club a sandwich, belly up to a sandbar,
Have a fine purple purpose,
Flout and rout pouting.
Ponder wonder.
Remembrance of Things Present:
Remember vermilion, the color of embers.
The gilt lilies frothing the field have no guilt.
Ponder only wonder.
.
Be harmless and warm, eschew other arms.
Praise the prize of days, the surprise of days.
'Frolic' means 'swift gladness':
May your gladness be quick and tricksy.
Be facile with docility,
Salacious for salad. Prefer tortes to torture.
Wreak wreaths, not havoc.
Have more siestas, more snoozes, more muses.
Be kind to your kind.
Under the grime of habit is the original shine,
Polish your time.
As you get old, pick courage, not rage.
The cartography of the heart
Is it a maze or a map?
Perhaps it's better to be polite than right?
Get stunned by fun.
With gusto and lusto, be happy, be sappy.
The solstice, the return of light,
The retreat of night
Shining on us all, the same sun
Makes us one;
Equal under the high and shining sky,
All our hearts are star bright.
The only task is to bask
In the holy glow of the fruited earth.
Linger, watch, admire. Remember.
Re-ember. Seize seeing.
Be a barnacle to your day.
There's lavender, provender, talent, gallantry,
There's silk, salt, and succotash.
Be bold, be brash,
Plunder the days for wonder.
****
In Avalon, the Island of Apples,
A unicorn foal, an otter,
And one silver kitten,
Enchanted by the moon,
Dance by the Lagoon of Dreams.
Slide deep into the Lagoon of Dreams,
Slide otterly deep
Into the Lagoon of Dreams
Where
Our hearts are songs of birds,
Waddles of penguins,
Soft as ostrich feathers,
As cawing as crows
With raucous guffawing.
*****
— January 2009 —
After the appalled derisions
With which we watched The Decider's decisions,
At last this year we surface from the Sea of Fear
Utterly playful again, like besotted otters;
“Hoppy Holidays, as a Frog might say,” I scribble daffily,
Drunk sans liquor with glee,
Ah, ahhh, we can tell stupid jokes again, verily.
At least Mount Rushmore and dimes are safe
From George's pipsquawk unsage image,
His flaws so fatal to so many who emptily died
For preemption, that rabid abstraction;
Heinous Cheney is deflated, if not checkmated.
Our dear Demos will lurch and blunder
But the massive hemorrhaging is ceased;
From the baleful rise of the 4th Reich,
That fathomless fright –
From their full frontal affront,
War as a codpiece,
We are released;
The Shadow, as Jung might have it,
Is revealed so it can be healed.
Hark! Embark on Prez O & Hillary's Ark,
Lambs & lions of service,
Fiercely mild in their souls,
Rallying the meek
To our inheritance.
It's a Team Dream
We're waking & making
On our gorgeous doting Planet;
Lend a hand, lend a heart,
Time to seriously, gladfully start,
Do thy ingenious, generous gallant part.
Invite your panself, holoself, remself,
To this' wildly surmising,' kaleidoscopically surprising
Sundream, moondream fiesta;
Tithe times ten your mirth
To our darling planet, Earth
Aka Vuravura, Jeegoo.
Teach your soul to be sunny and funny,
Carpe noctem tambien, carpe comedy,
Time for Team Earth
To prove our worth —
Gallop, gallivant, stroll, mull,
Earnestly act in delight & quixot.
***
— January 2010 —
I'm loath to mention the fly in the ointment,
Obama's been a bit of a disappointment;
It turns out that
Obama needs more drama,
Needs to be seen to matter
Instead of fiddling & faddling
While our fierce illusion shatters.
Too Beckett, too Waiting for Godot
While our bewildered hopes
Wither to woe.
Fierce Urgency Now
Would have been more F.U.N.
We'd be less stunned.
Oh well, hell, he looks great in a tux
And that's deluxe.
Hillary is splendid,
She's been triumphantly befriended
By the world's forgotten women,
Tireless champion, exorcist of
Historical & hysterical patriarchal demons,
Hillary of Arc has won their patient, brave hearts.
Assailin' flailin' Palin's a bit too fish-in-a-barrel,
The Finder of Enemies under every pebble,
Her feral pheromones, her floozy apparel;
Her dismal nasal prattle,
So obscenely mean,
Dangerous and unhinged,
Mesmerizing what we
Wish were The Fringe;
My fantasy would be to loose
A flotilla of rogue gorillas in Wasilla
And hope for the worst.
BTW, hurray for Bluejean Boy, Levi,
Who apparently can make a pariah of Sarah
If she rises too high,
Levi's my guy.
That we could allow
Aetna CEO silver-forked-tongued
Ron Williams
To make $97,000 a DAY
Fits in what moral universe
That isn't cursed?
There are better heroes of the bereft Left,
Ed the Lionheart stands strong for the needy,
Olbermann clobbers the greedy,
Maddow & Walsh prove
That rational kindness
Can bring light to our blindness.
Wonderful Wendell Potter
Who gave up comfort and riches
For the more lasting gold of Truth;
Sherrod Brown, Weiner who isn't,
Bernie, dear Bernie, Waxman,
And Barney of acerbic blarney,
Schumer, Guts Grayson,
Rockefeller put the MRI to the MLR;
Speaker Pelosi has the gonads
The gents are missing,
A big hero in spite of the hissing
Of the viperous Right
Who are so venomously Wrong.
I beseech particularly
That you forever forswear
The phrase “single payer”
And always say, “Medicare4All,
A less baggaged clarion call,
Not “socialist,” not “European,”
Save us from those sanities!
If (when?) we get to guillotines,
Slitherer Joe goes first,
That self-satisfied smirk
Into the basket of lickspittles & numbskulls.
Avatar 3D will hone & shine
Your raison-to-see
Out here on Mama Earth
aka VuraVura & Jeegoo,
Highest in our Who's Who
Of stupendous planets,
Our masterpiece of holoD,
Just open your eyes wide
And abide,
And remember that ember
The astronaut said,
“When I looked back at our planet Earth
What struck me
Is that there aren't any lines on it.”
All borders and barriers
Lie only in our brains,
Crippling fictions.
I remind the unkind
That until they speak
Fluent Cherokee,
To whose country
We swarming savage misfits
Had no right neither
Before nor after
We slaughtered their daughters
And poisoned their waters,
I suggest, at the least,
Probably futilely, humility.
I hope any hour finds you
mirthmost merry.
..wendy
When
multiplying gratitude Use some confounding, astounding number, Like the
number of leaves on trees, To remind you that however wisely you
galactisize your eyes, you still can't love it Enough; Revere what you
can, now, now & now. Immerse yourself in the Universe, Free glee to
fly in your sky like a bird of flame. Try not to get stuck in a God Rut
where you hurt or disdain others for dogma wrought by dead old bastards
who hammered tirades & tyrannies into a blade. Heroes are better
than Gods, less ambitious.
Health Reform Info 080809
Friends, these are some recent Comments on various articles and blogs from the New York Times to the wonderful Wendell Potter. I post these here for you to take phrases or thoughts or info to be arrows in your quiver re the healthcare debate.
==
2nd comment
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
We
all need to know that the Wall Street Orcs-in-Suits control your health
non-care. Google Wendell Potter the ex Cigna big shot PR guy who's now
a whistleblower (http://prwatch.org/user/
& you'll see that people like CEO Ron Williams of Aetna making
$24-million-dollars a year are not going to moderate quietly. Mr.
Williams is the Rescind-And-Purge=Evil champion of the Universe.
There's RAPE — Rescind-And-Purge=Evil. If you get sick, that Mr.
Williams of Aetna got the Gigantic Bucks because he fomented a computer
program to comb any claims for the slightest pretext for the insurance
corporations to rescind the coverage you thought you had. It's enough
to gag a maggot.
Re Purge, if you're a small business and have a modest group plan,
if one of your employees actually gets sick and needs to interfere with
pure unfettered bloodsucking of premiums, your small business will get
a huge increase in premiums to purge or force you from their rolls.
The unspeakable medical-loss-ratio means that a health-scam
corporation's stock is flayed by Wall Street for any health care they
actually pay out to sick people. Any claims paid are a “medical-loss”
— they want them premiums for stockholders, not for patients.
Incredibly, payment for patients is considered a “medical-loss” by the
Vampire Capitalism of our current Wall Street.
My mind reels at the deep ugliness of the system. This is
Bernie-Madoff-League scamming, done by the best confusion &
legerdelying that fathomless Big Bucks can buy.
If you want to
keep paying an average of $14 million dollar annual
medical-industrial-complex CEO salaries, be my guest. I'd prefer the
choice of a public option where the money goes to help me or you. Gee,
what a novel idea. (Self-employed, I haven't had health coverage since
1979 — 262,800 hours waiting in line . . .)
LBJ said, “I will fight for Medicare as long as I have breath in my
body.” Our current leaders need an injection of LBJ-Fight. Speak boldly.
==
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
Joe Califano recalled this afternoon (08.07.09) that LBJ said,”I will
fight for Medicare as long as I have breath in my body.” We need this
explicit passion from President Obama re the public option.
I'm
amazed that people are so vehemently eager to have Wall Street between
them and their doctor. The medical-industrial-complex insurance
corporations are only rewarded for collecting your premiums and then
*not* paying your claims. It's called medical-loss-ratio. If a
health-scam corporation starts paying too great a ratio of medical
losses (aka patient claims), its stock gets punished. (I learned this
from the wonderful Wendell Potter, whistleblower, ex-Cigna PR chief.)
==
email to David Sirota 080709
Dear Mr. Sirota,
Thanks for your town-brawl primer.
I hope you'll spread the word about medical-loss-ratios, the odious detail that finally pushed me off the Sickened Cliff into a free fall of dumbfounded disgust.
I'm amazed that people in these
town brawls are so violently eager to use their premiums to pay CEO Ron
Williams of Aetna's $24-million-dollar annual compensation. I'm happy
for them to do that, but I'd like the choice, the public option, not to
buy the gold-rimmed luncheon plates on the Aetna jet.
I'm amazed that people are so vehemently eager to have Wall Street
between them and their doctor. The medical-industrial-complex insurance
corporations are only rewarded for collecting your premiums and then
*not* paying your claims. It's called medical-loss-ratio. If a
health-scam corporation starts paying too great a ratio of medical
losses (aka patient claims), its stock gets punished. (I learned this from the wonderful Wendell Potter, whistleblower, ex-Cigna PR chief.)
I think if people
knew more and weren't responding to fortune-cookie propaganda, there'd
be no question that they'd demand a public option to at least slow the
juggernaut of the built-in rapacious greed-for-profit of the current
gold-rimmed-plates Let's Dupe the Sheeple arrangement.
According to Joe Califano, President Lyndon Johnson said, “I will fight
for Medicare as long as I have breath in my body.” We need this passion
in the current Democrats.
Thanks again,
Wendy
Wendy Fleet
Mountain View CA 94041
wendyfleet@gmail.com
650.966.1542
==
http://www.russfeingold.org/
In a sea of Profiles in Jellyfishism, you have always been a Profile in
Courage. Progressives are grateful. I'm amazed that people in these
town brawls are so violently eager to use their premiums to pay CEO Ron
Williams of Aetna's $24 million dollar annual compensation. I'm happy
for them to do that, but I'd like the choice, the public option, not to
buy the gold-rimmed luncheon plates on the Aetna jet.
I'm amazed that people are so vehemently eager to have Wall Street
between them and their doctor. The medical-industrial-complex insurance
corporations are only rewarded for collecting your premiums and then
*not* paying your claims. It's called medical-loss-ratio. If a
health-scam corporation starts paying too great a ratio of medical
losses (aka patient claims), its stock gets punished. I think if people
knew more and weren't responding to fortune-cookie propaganda, there'd
be no question that they'd demand a public option to at least slow the
juggernaut of the built-in rapacious greed-for-profit of the current
gold-rimmed-plates Let's Dupe the Sheeple arrangement.
President Lyndon Johnson said, “I will fight to my last breath for
Medicare.” We need this passion in the current Democrats.
==
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
I'm amazed that people are so violently eager to use their premiums to
pay CEO Ron Williams of Aetna's $24 million dollar annual compensation.
I'm happy for them to do that, but I'd like the choice, the public
option, not to buy the gold-rimmed plates on the Aetna jet.
I'm amazed that people are so violently eager to have Wall Street
between them and their doctor. The medical-industrial-complex insurance
corporations are only rewarded for collecting your premiums and then
*not* paying your claims. It's called medical-loss-ratio. If a
health-scam corporation starts paying too great a ratio of medical
losses (patient claims), its stock gets punished.
I think if people knew more and weren't responding to
fortune-cookie propaganda, there'd be no question that they'd demand a
public option to at least slow the juggernaut of the built-in rapacious
greed-for-profit of the current gold-rimmed-plates Let's Dupe the
Sheeple arrangement.
==
labman57 & periscope are near the bullseye. We all
need to know that the Wall Street Orcs in Suits control your health
non-care. Google Wendell Potter the ex Cigna big shot PR guy who's now
a whistleblower (http://prwatch.org/user/
Note the odious medical-loss-ratio which means that a health
corporation's stock is punished by Wall Street for any health care they
pay out (aka medical-loss –they want them premiums for stockholders,
not for patients. Payment to patients is considered a “medical-loss”).
Then there's RAPE — Rescind-And-Purge Evil. If you get sick, that
Mr. Williams of Aetna got the Gigantic Bucks because he invented a
computer program to comb any claims for the slightest pretext for the
insurance corporations to rescind the coverage you thought you had.
Re Purge, if you're a small business and have a modest group plan,
if one of your employees actually gets sick and needs to interfere with
pure unfettered bloodsucking of premiums, your small business will get
a huge increase in premiums to purge you from their rolls.
If you want to keep paying an average of $14 million dollar annual
medical-industrial-complex CEO salaries, be my guest. I'd prefer the
choice of a public option where the money goes to help me or you. Gee,
what a novel idea. (Self-employed, I haven't had health coverage since
1979 — 262,800 hours waiting in line . . .)
==
Ask Dr. Druid . Day 50 . What the Cactus Knows
Ask
Dr. Druid . Day 50
What the Cactus Knows
This
piece will read best for you
if you read it with your mouth as if
out loud
[Ask
Dr. Druid is
designed to begin at the beginning. Click
here.]
You can enter rem states as you're writing. That is,
you write from inside the vision. Or you can wake from the rem state
and write as you slosh in the shallows of the remembered dream/rem sea.
What keeps you from completely surfacing when you rise out of rem is
the silver-fish of a phrase or scene you use as a portal back to the
dream. Scribbling down this silver-fish-phrase can keep the dream from
sliding away into opaque depths. That's why I have my log next to my
pillow and a pencil there too. A pencil writes at any angle so you can
stay pretty asleep or in rem. This cactus piece was a rem vision I had
from semi-waking. I wrote it down as if I were writing a letter to you.
::-::-::
I find myself talking to a cactus. (Since I was a child talking to
trees before I learned that one did not talk about talking to trees,
'talking to' meant 98% 'listening to' trees.) Or in this case, cactus.
This was a proper desert with dramatic hilly ranges of lion-colored
sand. I felt like la petite princesse — well, ok, la princesse tres
rondelette. If I looked thru the earth, I saw the bottoms of kangaroo
feet nearer to my right and less far than at home so tal vez or perhaps
this immense sand sea was In America del Sur?
The cactus was not a
candelabra of my beloved saguaros, but one cylinder about 6 ft tall. It
spoke by imprinting me with oneiroglyphs, as trees speak. It was
reminding me, not meanly but with cactus-spine-sharp irony, that I had
had a “stupid prejudice to the leafy and needled” when I was younger.
That I had come “noticeably” late to the devotion to succulents and
cacti. That I had even said roughshoddedly that iceplants had “fat
leaves.” Being chastised teasingly by a cactus leaves you helpless with
abashed hilarity.
Cactus was very old but young at pith. The real
rootnets, it was saying, are the in-the-dirt antennae of the flowering
plants, the trees, the tomato plants, the corn stalks, the jungle
vines, ++. It tuned something in my daedalus or central brain matrix so
I could hear the hum/purr of their gossip + palaver with the bottoms of
my feet. It saw me not as I see my own body, but, instead of 'skin,' as
a swirling of 3D animated 'tattoos' of all the experiences which
inhabit me. Cactus was +very+ caustic about the “care-less-ness of your
species-ilk.” It was vexxxed. “We don't mind you. We don't mind the
squirrels and the rabbits either. But if you listened more with the
ears of, the screens of your feet, you'd learn to be less noisy.” In this tone, we took trez cool tour thru the filigree of the world's roots.
I had 'feelings' in my feet, not head nor heart nor gut. I also felt
the pulse of my blood in my feet — my feet beating, like small drums
speaking to other feet? I felt feet-bottoms to feet-bottoms with the
kangaroos. A new glot, feet-bottom-glot, or language to learn. Ham
dumble.
I've been looking lately at some spectacular
altiplano desert picts of Bolivia by Gerhard Hudepohl. I'm obsessed
with the Green Evolution. And with teaching tele + oneiroportation to
cut down on fossil-fuel combustions.
Re-start scribbling down your visions either as you drift to rem or as you return from rem. You are a rem reporter.
::-::-::-::
Notes:
..rem
.. I use rem as a general term for the imaginative states of vision and
nightdream. I see all our experiences as dreams along a spectrum of
kinesthetic persistence. So what you tend to refer to as your 'daily
life' would have great stretches of K1 or the first level of
kinesthetic persistence. The continents of the geography of your
experience. There are many stretches of dreamy or drifting
semi-perception thru your day which are the lacunae (little lakes) or
unkickable parts of your experience. (People are are proving that
matter exists by kicking the boulder and saying “Ouch!”)
..le petit prince , from the book by St. Exupery, spends much of his
time alone with his single rose. The joke here is that I feel my self
in this vision like the little prince, but a girl, and because I'm
chubby rondolette rather than petit or little. Tres (tray) means very
in French & my franglais or fractured French for that is often trez
— also a small droll because in the proper french you leave off the
“s” sound unless the next word starts with a vowel. Thus the French
would never say Trez droll, but it amuses me.
..suguaro is pronounced soo-whar-oh.
..oneiroglyphs .. 3D glyphs from oneiro or dreams; cf hieroglyphs made into scenes.
..daedalus bridge .. It's fun to re-ember the firefly-fraught
tale of Icarus & Daedalus. Now nobody has ever done psychology like
the Greeks. Well, they invented the word psychology too after all. (Jung called
astrology the accumulated wisdom of the ancients.) Daedalus &
Icarus are captured on some dullsville island. Daedalus, the master
craftsman, talks to them local bees and uses their wax plus the feathers of
cormorants and makes fine wings for him & Icarus. Daedalus extols
the middle way — not too high or the sun will melt the wax, the
structure of your dear wings, or too low lest the curling crests of
waves catch you in their idly tricksy grasps. Oh well we all know that
Icarus flew too high, wings melted, fell into sea. Daedalus, however
made it to the mainland. Hurray for, say, sensible madness. I like to use his name as the master craftsman to honor the the corpus callosum, the middle of the joined-brain, the daedalus
bridge, the powerful middle way, as it were — the wings-crafting place
where the brain joins all its forces in a rhapsody, a woven song.
::-::-::-::
If
you know or are an agent, aspiring agent, editor, or publisher person
who would handle this kind of druid material, please let me know at
.. askdrdruid@gmail.com.
Please
put ‘agent’ in the subject line.
………….<^>……………..
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copyright
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blog
title image is a piece of andy goldsworthy
excerpt
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article
title image wf
I’d
be very grateful if you’d send pogblog’s link to a
friend:
http://pogblog.blogharbor.com
email:
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..
keep your heart bright. beauty is rising.
.for
bombadilobo & diablobo.
<^>..
the
education-obsessed world begins today with you ..
..
if you make $50,000 a year, it’s gone in 4 seconds in Iraq;
..
let’s spend most of the Military-Corporate Budget on education
instead ..
-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-
Ask Dr. Druid . Hypermiling Advances . Day 49
Ask
Dr. Druid . Day 49
Hypermiling Advances
This
piece will read best for you
if you read it with your mouth as if
out loud
[Ask
Dr. Druid is
designed to begin at the beginning. Click
here.]
Astonished weren't you to notice how
thoughtlessly and/or belligerently people drive?
I still reel when I realize that
hurtle-&-brake and jack-rabbit starting, & the full-monty of
aggressive driving saves you, if at all, 75 seconds per ½ hour of
nutville rage-ridden more dangerous driving.
Let's get into some weeds here. The
devil and the eco-driver (the smart hypermiler) is in the details. I
am not an Xtreme Hypermiler. I don't draft off semis. Wayne Gerdis,
the perhaps mad Ty Cobb of Xtreme Hypermilers drafts off the Big
Trucks. Any momentum he has 'bought' with irreplaceable,
precious dead-dinosaur fuel, he will fight to use rather than waste.
Thus he takes freeway offramps at an horrific speed so as not to lose
the gained-momentum from the straightaway. (I do the opposite because
I'm so respectful of the car's underpinings.)
However, there are just being-alerts
that can make you smoother. Just like all other attention, you check
near, medium, far, high, low, peripheral. The light turns red, foot
off the gas for the Most Skillful Landing. Leave your one car length
between you & the car in front of you for the Most Skillful
Takeoff.
Smart Landing is easier to gauge once
you have the trick than Smart Takeoff. Ideally, if we all left the
one-car's length between our vehicles at a stoplight, when the light
turns green, all of us could begin to gently roll at once.
Until that blessed day, you need to look at the car in front of the
car directly in front of you. When you see that car twitch, if
you're in an automatic, you can take your foot off the brake and
begin your smooth and gentle takeoff. This smooth takeoff is why you left the
extra room – so you don't have to wait til the car in front of you
gets far enough away to allow your start with enough room left to
stop again if you must.
It is thoughtful to pull over to the
more middle white-line of your lane so a car who's turning left, say,
has room to comfortably pass you while you're idly near a light. As I
drive toward a light I didn't see turn green, I have to decide if
it's a stale green. If I come around a corner and the light is red, I
notice if the turners in the turn lanes are still turning. I notice
if pedestrians are crossing. Collect details that will make you a yet
more skillful hypermiler.
Roll roll roll your car Gently down
the street, Merrily merrily merrily, Life is such a treat.
-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-
Notes: I was shocked this morning when I got the gasoline and with my good tire gauge discovered that all of my tires were significantly low in air. I had air at the 35 lb high end of my tires' range when I got my oil changed about 4 1/2 months ago. I have committed to check the air in my tires once a month now + forever.
Ask
Dr. Druid, 55 Days from Lead to Gold, Secrets of Alchemy You Can
Use, a druid shaman’s playbook
.. Intro;
Prologue;
Day
1; Days
2 & 3;
Day
4; Day
5; Day
6; Day
7; Day
8; Day
9; Day
10; Day
11; Day
12; Day
13; Day
14; day
15 Review 2;
Day
16; Day
17; Day
18; Day
19; Day
20; Day
21; Day
22; Day
23; Day
24; Day
25; Day
26; Day
27; Day
28; Day
29; Day
30; Day
31; Day
32; Day
33; Day
34; Day
35; Day
36; Day
37; [Day
38]; Day
39; Day
40; Day
41; Day
42; Day
43; Day
44; Day
45; Day
46; Day
47; Day
48; Day 49;
-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-.
If
you know or are an agent, aspiring agent, editor, or publisher person
who would handle this kind of druid material, please let me know at
.. askdrdruid@gmail.com.
Please
put ‘agent’ in the subject line.
………….<^>……………..
It’s
an honor to have you visit pogblog. Do comment.
You
may comment anonymously.
…………….<^>……………..
Check
pogblog’s
Glossary
for brave & nefarious words.
copyright
pogblog 2008 all rights reserved
copyright
ask dr. druid 2008 all rights reserved
blog
title image is a piece of andy goldsworthy
excerpt
image wf
article
title image wf
I’d
be very grateful if you’d send pogblog’s link to a
friend:
http://pogblog.blogharbor.com
email:
askdrdruid@gmail.com
..
keep your heart bright. beauty is rising.
.for
bombadilobo & diablobo.
<^>..
the
education-obsessed world begins today with you ..
..
if you make $50,000 a year, it’s gone in 4 seconds in Iraq;
..
let’s spend most of the Military-Corporate Budget on education
instead ..
-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-
Ask Dr. Druid . Hypermiling vs Hyperdorking . Day 48
Ask
Dr. Druid . Day 48
Hypermiling
vs Hyperdorking
This
piece will read best for you
if
you read it with your mouth as if out loud
[Ask
Dr. Druid
is designed to begin at the beginning. Click
here.]
Hurray. A
daily chance to practice your best deft attention skills and come to
the rescue of your beloved & beleaguered planet at the same time.
What a deal.
Hypermiling is smart eco-driving. As
with most skills, it will take a day or a week and a lifetime to Get
Good. Send Inner Perf to Fiji for mas grog The basic of Hypermiling
is that you evolve from a leadfoot to a sugarfoot . With accomplished
hypermiling, you'll be hypersmiling all the way to the Make the
Planet Happier And Be Less of a Mindless Wasteful Boor Bank.
30 years ago, when I was still a huge
baseball fan, I did a spate of listening to the radio. There was a
gent who did segments on random interesting stuff. In one segment, he
told us out in RadioLand that if each driver who stopped at a light left
one car length between them and the car in front of them, when the
light turned green, the entire line could gently roll at once, and
traffic movement, traffic flow, would be greatly more pleasant &
efficient.
Roy Harrigan from Dorset, Vermont was
a childhood friend of my first husband, M.Fay. Harrigan was a lunatic
genius. He invented a 300 mph submarine. He shot rats thru the walls
with the Luger he kept to the right of the spoons by his placemat at
dinner. He declared that terrified deer tasted better than killed
calm deer. I saw the Luger routine myself while eating venison at his
house. Roy was seriously nuts.
Shaefe Satterthwaite from Tenafly New
Jersey was an ecologist in 1966 before there were ecologists. He gave
me Star, a prize milking goat, for my wedding. There's the memorable
pict of me in my wedding dress milking the goat because no one else
knew how to milk a goat. (A month later Star escaped from her tether
and was impounded by the police for eating all of the mayor of
Manchester Vermont's prize peonies the week before the annual Garden
Tour.) Satterthwaite drove a Saab which had great gas mileage. He
drove tirelessly up & down the East Coast to obscure meetings
about saving wetlands. Satterthwaite loved his swamps.
Satterthwaite could read a
topographical map. We'd set off for a hike and it was no nonsense.
He'd lead with his great walking stick and high-laced old hiking
boots. You marched with Satterthwaite.
I hiked once with Harrigan. It was
charming. He said, “If you kill yourself, you'll only get to the
top of the mountain five minutes sooner.” Holy moly, the hiking
styles were so against the auto-prejudices. It is always in all ways
a treasure hunt, life. You do not know what who or what's gonna toss you
the gold doubloon this day.
I learned about the deep swamp
patterns of the planet's needs from sweet Satterthwaite. I learned to
travel calmly from loonland Harrigan.
So whenever I see a redlight, I take
my foot off the accelerator and coast or roll — the most points in
my Secret Driving Game coming from hitting a light rolling.
If I have to gently stop, I leave the
car's length space or cushion between me and the vehicle in front of
me. Depending on the line, I start to roll or creep when the car(or
two) in front of the car in front of me starts to roll. This allows
me to accelerate smoothly instead of jerkily and obviates dumb
jackrabbiting, a signature move of the hyperdork.
My most honored stepfather John Porter
was a bit of a Thoreauian. After philosophy at Princeton, he went
farming in Maryland. We were just at the transition from the huge
Percheron farm horses to John Deere, Farmall, and Allis Chalmers
tractors. John Deere tractors were bright green and ponderous.
Farmall were red and reliable. Allis Chalmers were orangey yellow,
zippy, and temperamental. The Allis Chalmers could go 5 mph maybe
while the John Deere could go 2 mph. You cannot imagine how obscenely
expensive tractors were. It's why farmers are 100% always in
major-league debt. I think a big tractor was $20-$30,000. John was
very big on “taking care of the machinery,” on not cowboying
around, of being aware of the effect of gentle turns on the
unromantic but essential underpinnings of a car, a truck, or a
tractor.
So I knew we made impacts on the
planet. I knew that it was smart to take care of the machinery. And I
knew that aggressive driving would only get you there 5 minutes
sooner. These influences wove to make me a smart, low-impact driver
for forty years. But what I didn't have was a Darn Cool Name for it.
So when I heard of “hypermiling” recently, I was truly tickled. I
now drive smugly along and grin sneerily to myself, “I'm a
hypermiler” and think of bumperstickers like Hypermiling Leads to
Hypersmiling. Instead of road rage, I have road glee as I get into
the Hypermiling Zone and do my little earnest part for the planet.
Then dear The Blue sent me an
etherogram with “Hyperdorking” on it! What's the opposite of
smart, eco-driver hypermiling? Hurtle-&-brake, gas-guzzling,
exhaust-spewing stupid hyperdorking.
After the light turns red, all of the
gas spent still accelerating in order to sit at the light going Zero
mpg is Utterly Wasted. It is twice evilly stupid. That precious gas
is lost to future useful motion. That gas turns to anti-people &
anti-planet toxic emissions for no reason except ignorant and
arrogant hyperdorking. Piffle. These people are a menace.
Anyone who drives so belligerently is in a pathetic lack of
self-esteem and self-confidence. Like all bullies, hyperdorking road
bullies use belligerence instead of brains. As they gun past you
(often in an SUV or a shriek-yellow Hummer), you can now have the
pleasing holler of “Hyperdorking!” to justly condemn their
selfish gigadumbness.
Your being a hero as a driver, a
hypermiling samurai, means restraint and skill.
Tomorrow we'll get into more details
of hypermiling and into why I'm not an Xtreme Hypermiler. And,
perhaps, another deliciously righteous anti-hyperdorking rant, or
twain.
This very day begin to catalog where
you are on the leadfoot/sugarfoot scale of hypermiling vs
hyperdorking. Are you already gliding like a samurai swan through the
hectic traffic, an eco-hero hypermiler? Or are you hurtling &
braking, impatient, stupid, an eco-loser, a vehicular villain, an
hyperdorker? Keep track.
///!!\\\
Notes:
..mas
(mahss) is 'more' in Spanish;
..A
friend & I have been debating between the best 'opposite' of
'leadfoot.' Featherfoot fits the weight feel and is cool, but there's
something so beguiling –sweet?– about sugarfoot.
..Remind
yourself if necessary about Inner Perf on Day 5, Inner Perfectionist
to Fiji;
-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-
Ask
Dr. Druid, 55 Days from Lead to Gold, Secrets of Alchemy You Can
Use, a druid shaman’s playbook
.. Intro;
Prologue;
Day
1; Days
2 & 3;
Day
4; Day
5; Day
6; Day
7; Day
8; Day
9; Day
10; Day
11; Day
12; Day
13; Day
14; day
15 Review 2;
Day
16; Day
17; Day
18; Day
19; Day
20; Day
21; Day
22; Day
23; Day
24; Day
25; Day
26; Day
27; Day
28; Day
29; Day
30; Day
31; Day
32; Day
33; Day
34; Day
35; Day
36; Day
37; [Day
38]; Day
39; Day
40; Day
41; Day
42; Day
43; Day
44; Day
45; Day
46; Day
47; Day 48;
-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-.
If
you know or are an agent, aspiring agent, editor, or publisher person
who would handle this kind of druid material, please let me know at
.. askdrdruid@gmail.com.
Please
put ‘agent’ in the subject line.
………….<^>……………..
It’s
an honor to have you visit pogblog. Do comment.
You
may comment anonymously.
…………….<^>……………..
Check
pogblog’s
Glossary
for brave & nefarious words.
copyright
pogblog 2008 all rights reserved
copyright
ask dr. druid 2008 all rights reserved
blog
title image is a piece of andy goldsworthy
excerpt
image wf
article
title image wf
I’d
be very grateful if you’d send pogblog’s link to a
friend:
http://pogblog.blogharbor.com
email:
askdrdruid@gmail.com
..
keep your heart bright. beauty is rising.
.for
bombadilobo & diablobo.
..<^>..
the
education-obsessed world begins today with you ..
..
if you make $50,000 a year, it’s gone in 4 seconds in Iraq;
..
let’s spend most of the Military-Corporate Budget on education
instead ..
-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-
Ask Dr. Druid . Day 47 . The How
Ask
Dr. Druid . Day 47
The
How
This
piece will read best for you
if
you read it with your mouth as if out loud
[Ask
Dr. Druid
is designed to begin at the beginning. Click
here.]
As we study [other] dreams more
assiduously, we can, will, & must speculate with intricate
admiration, desire, rage even about how in all that absurd
ebullience of starry
profusion we take
one step upon a planet, how there is one dragonfly, one piece
of French toast?
Or more achingly, how in the face of
a million steps and a million dragonflys, we could have any moment
of distress or depression or kill each other for striped cloths?
The 2nd Ache we'll
address in Bks 2 + 3. For now the glorious stuffness of K1T1, of the
AllElse, its fearful symmetry should electrify our attention.
As a long distance runner gets her
pulse rate up and her muscles tuned, her endurance honed, your long
distance attention will get easy & toughened.
Think of the House-Attacking
BlueJay. This don quixote BlueJay tilted furiously at the windows
of Lowell's house for 5 weeks. Why? Because his reflection in the
window was an indefatigable intruder warrior bird. (Talk about projection!
Even Jung's mind would pretzel at this one.)
No matter how fiercely
Our Bird pecked the hateful intruder in the glass, the hateful
intruder pecked back just as fiercely. No matter how menacingly Our
Bird puffed up his feathers, the prideful intruder puffed up his
terrible feathers igualmente. Brilliant but often dumb evolution
hadn't included 'reflections' in our House-Attacking BlueJay's
instinct vocabulary.
So, thus, we are always gathering
evidence with our honed attention for its fabulous own fascinating
sake, but also that a case may coalesce so we may grok 'reflections'
or whatever other hidden in plain sight twists of comprehension lie
waiting to eureka us.
It was only by being persistently
alert that I got the key inescapable evidence for the
multi-dimensional universe decades before it became dimmly glimpsed
by the scientos. When the window glass went elastic for 4 seconds at
403 Hope Street on the southwest side of the house, a 'reflection
aha!' revealed itself: 'Oh my brain is an agency in the collaboration
of the production of “reality.”' Hmmm.
So as we get more accustomed to
including muchas kaleids or facets in our increasingly spherical
experience of realities, you'll get as hooked on The How as the rest
of us psioneers.
As your New Awake gets stabilized
as a plenishing process, a gently & intensely increasingly
illuminated process, boredom will be finito unless you're one of
those loonland nutvilles determined to starve at a smorgasbord.
…
As you include your night dreams or
reveries in your comprehension of reality, allow the staggering How
jolt your grokking. The scale of the Mystery will blow through you
like a great wind. The How is a powerful drug. Only take it in the
doses you can just bearly stand. It can knock you rudely on your rump
if you swallow too much of the ocean at once. The How is a very
haunting question.
///!!\\\
..k1 is our basic shared persistence of
the kinesthetic dear day world; t1 is our sort of linear time.
..fearful symmetry is from Blake, the
Most Electrified of All except maybe GM Hopkins. This is no doubt the
greatest poem dreadfully inquiring about The How. Recall that it's
all burning bright.
Tyger!
Tyger! burning bright
In
the forests of the night,
What
immortal hand or eye
Could
frame thy fearful symmetry?
In
what distant deeps or skies
Burnt
the fire of thine eyes?
On
what wings dare he aspire?
What
the hand dare seize the fire?
And
what shoulder, and what art,
Could
twist the sinews of thy heart,
And
when thy heart began to beat,
What
dread hand? and what dread feet?
What
the hammer? what the chain?
In
what furnace was thy brain?
What
the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare
its deadly terrors clasp?
When
the stars threw down their spears,
And
water'd heaven with their tears,
Did
he smile his work to see?
Did
he who made the Lamb
Tyger!
Tyger! burning bright
In
the forests of the night,
What
immortal hand or eye,
Dare
frame thy fearful symmetry?
///
..
Ask
Dr. Druid, 55 Days from Lead to Gold, Secrets of Alchemy You Can
Use, a druid shaman’s playbook
.. Intro;
Prologue;
Day
1; Days
2 & 3;
Day
4; Day
5; Day
6; Day
7; Day
8; Day
9; Day
10; Day
11; Day
12; Day
13; Day
14; day
15 Review 2;
Day
16; Day
17; Day
18; Day
19; Day
20; Day
21; Day
22; Day
23; Day
24; Day
25; Day
26; Day
27; Day
28; Day
29; Day
30; Day
31; Day
32; Day
33; Day
34; Day
35; Day
36; Day
37; [Day
38]; Day
39; Day
40; Day
41; Day
42; Day
43; Day
44; Day
45; Day
46; Day 47;
-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-.
If
you know or are an agent, aspiring agent, editor, or publisher person
who would handle this kind of druid material, please let me know at
.. askdrdruid@gmail.com.
Please
put ‘agent’ in the subject line.
………….<^>……………..
It’s
an honor to have you visit pogblog. Do comment.
You
may comment anonymously.
…………….<^>……………..
Check
pogblog’s
Glossary
for brave & nefarious words.
copyright
pogblog 2008 all rights reserved
copyright
ask dr. druid 2008 all rights reserved
blog
title image is a piece of andy goldsworthy
excerpt
image wf
article
title image wf
I’d
be very grateful if you’d send pogblog’s link to a
friend:
http://pogblog.blogharbor.com
email:
askdrdruid@gmail.com
..
keep your heart bright. beauty is rising.
.for
bombadilobo & diablobo.
<^>
..the
education-obsessed world begins today with you ..
..
if you make $50,000 a year, it’s gone in 4 seconds in Iraq;
..
let’s spend most of the Military-Corporate Budget on education
instead ..
-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-