Clockwork Angels

I have been asked by the "Boys" to mention very especial pair of young men, they are of course Dr. Heckle and Mister Jive. Born in a time, here in America, when men were men and beer was a cool, refreshing beverage, not a loaded gun on a nursery school playground, rocket ships were sending huge payloads off to space at hypersonic velocities, cartoons were rife with senseless violence and God had his hand firmly on the dome of of the White House like a fragile egg safely nestled in a cocoon of Tempur-pedic foam. No one really knows what happened to these lads, but their work in the mid-to-late 70's can still be felt today, especially in the world of journalism. Poets these chaps were, and poetry, as the the old saying goes, "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these things."* We attribute much the those slayers of great dragons, those players-with-words, those Kings-of-things-that-always-brings-us-back-to-where-a-robin-sings-and-when-we-find-these-pretty-things-we-tend-to-cease-destructive-flings. Say good night Ed. *T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-English poet and playwright.

Foucault's Pendulum

The plot of Foucault's Pendulum revolves around three friends, as relevant to the rule of three, named Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon, who work for a vanity publisher in Milan. After reading one too many manuscripts about occult conspiracy theories, they decide they can do better, and set out to invent their own conspiracy for fun. They call this satirical intellectual game "The Plan". As Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon become increasingly obsessed with The Plan, they sometimes forget that it's just a game. Worse still, when adherents of other conspiracy theories learn about The Plan, they take it seriously. Belbo finds himself the target of a very real secret society that believes he possesses the key to the lost treasure of the Knights Templar. It's a tough read with numerous plots twists and endless references to societies that I must separately research. Oh, and then there's the translating from Italian.

The Potential Well

Zero-point energy is fundamentally related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Roughly speaking, the uncertainty principle states that complementary variables (such as a particle's position and momentum, or a field's value and derivative at a point in space) cannot simultaneously be defined precisely by any given quantum state. In particular, there cannot be a state in which the system sits motionless at the bottom of its potential well, for then its position and momentum would both be completely determined to arbitrarily great precision. Therefore, the lowest-energy state (the ground state) of the system must have a distribution in position and momentum that satisfies the uncertainty principle, which implies its energy must be greater than the minimum of the potential well.

Is The Caller There?

As a young boy, I always thought that Wilbur, the man from the hit T.V. Show Mr. Ed, had it made. I loved that his place had a stable (where Ed lived) that had a phone and a desk and fridge... I always thought that was so cool. I used to think that if I were Wibur, I would just move my bed out there too and my clothes and everything and just let Carol (his wife) live in the house. Carol (and my mom for that matter) only seemed to make Wilbur (and my dad) nervous and upset, whereas Mr. Ed was obviously a guy and I thought guyfriends were better than women friends. We have a lot of fun and it's just a lot of fun. Say good night Ed.

Tee Polyphosphate Ef

Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning, blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle, light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh, this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline. The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite. Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs. Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic, slam, but neck, right? Right.

Living Hell!

Here is a picture of the man who has made my life a living Hell, here at the Chocolate Factory. Little Charlie is all grown up now and runs the place like some kind of concentration camp. Oh, how I miss Willy Wonka. Why, sometimes, I get so down-hearten I just want to climb into the taffy puller and turn the machine on. Really what I'd like to do is shave that bastard's smug mustache off and sprinkle it in the candy. That would shut this place down real quick. Oh, I'm going to Hell. In a handbag y'all.

It Ain't Over

Meanwhile, back at the chocolate factory, the oppression persists. As the only "straight" Oompa-Loompa in the joint, I am often the "whipping Boy" to Charlie's manic rage against the state of the economy and his business affairs. It's an extremely difficult life here in what looked, at least on paper, to be a veritable cake-walk of a job and a wonderful opportunity to advance myself in life. Now... well, there are times so dark I just feel like diving into that river of chocolate and sinking away to that eternal obscurity.

My Memorial For The Next Reunion

Seely, an inveterate avant-garde in the field of Mind expansion through Native American ceremonies and arm chair anthropologist, was last seen in the Sonoran Desert near Maricopa, Arizona on December 20, 2012. He is presumed dead.

Onward from vast uncharted spaces, Forward through timeless voids, Into all of us surges and races The measureless might of the wind. [...] In the steep silence of thin blue air High on a lonely cliff-ledge, Where the air has a clear, clean rarity, I give to the wind...my pledge: ”By the strength of my arm, by the sight of my eyes, By the skill of my fingers, I swear, As long as life dwells in me, never will I Follow any way but the sweeping way of the wind.” __________ (published in On Desert Trails with Everett Ruess, with introduction by Hugh Lacy and foreword by Randall Henderson, Desert Magazine Press, Palm Desert, California, 1950.)

He is a monster He is a monster Was he really born this way? He is a monster He is a monster He is always there when you turn the page. No Restraining He's retaining Everything he sees While the world shook He's eating another book I hope he shares some with me He is a monster He is a monster Was he really born this way? He is a monster He is a monster He is always there when you turn the page. SFC

So Long And Thanks!

Well as they say, all good things must come to an end and by gaw, the end drawer nearer. The old polyphosphate filter has served us well for a few days now but alas, I feel it has grown a bit long-in-the-tooth, as it were. But fear not! For I am planning an entirely new new Weblog entitled, Ode To Ed. A Blog based on all the Eds out there that have shaped my life into the magic caravan o' fun and fear that we see rolling along the prairie of purple imprudence, day in and day out. So stay tuned fellow caballeros! We're in for a new long haul down the dusty trails of imagination. Brought to you by Bubba's Bar and Grill.

SOMEBODY SAVED ME PETE TOWNSHEND - YouTube

SOMEBODY SAVED ME PETE TOWNSHEND - YouTube

Dreamers Learn To Steer By The Stars

Dreamed that I was back at the old Propane Driver job. And I was miserable. And in a way, I really am. Here in heaven, just another hell. Just another winner, pours his life down the drain
Just another island in a hurricane
Just another loser, like a cat in the rain
Just another day ace up...in the path of a speeding train.

- Snak Shak -

- Snak Shak -

Happy Easter

The Donkey
By G. K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

Reynard-The-Fox

Willem, die Madoc maecte,
Daer hi dicken omme waecte,
Hem vernoyde so haerde
Dat die avonture van Reynaerde
In dietsche onghemaket bleven
(Die Arnout niet hevet vulscreven)
Dat hi die vijte van Reynaerde dede soucken
Ende hise na den walschen boucken
In dietsche dus hevet begonnen.


Willem who has made Madoc,
and suffered many a sleepless night in doing so,
regretted
that the adventures of Reynaert
had not been translated in Dutch
(because Arnout had not completed his work).
So he has researched the facts of Reynard's deeds
and in the same way as the French books
has he written it in Dutch.

Deus Ex Machina

a character or thing that suddenly enters the story in a novel, play, movie, etc., and solves a problem that had previously seemed impossible to solve. O.K. So our caravan now was rolling through the steppes of central Asia. Things were about as good as one could reasonably expect them to be, considering that I had to hold the whole affair up for almost two hours, earlier that morning, to go wash and dry my pants down by the river's edge. The curry we'd had for dinner that previous evening, ran through me like a tornado and sure as you-know-what, I'd shat them, thine aforementioned pantaloons that is.

Home From L.A.

I've got to tell you, when I opened the letter with the words Occidental College written upon it, I was a little concerned. After all these years, had they finally traced those days of indiscretion and acts of vandalism (we called it art!) to me? I opened the letter and found inside an invitation to attend an unveiling ceremony (from my old friend and veteran professor of art history and the visual arts, Linda Lyke), "Destructive Beauty," at South Pasadena's LouWe Gallery. The mural, is composed of 26 one-foot-square glazed ceramic tiles and features, among other things, old photos and excerpts of poems, letters, and musical scores by Occidental alumni and faculty past and present. Anyway, to make a long story short* I went, I saw, I had the time of my life and was regaled by many at the event as "One of those crazy hippies over at the old Quonset hut, back in the '70's!"
*the rest of the story will be the subject of this coming year's Christmas letter.

Snows of Kilimanjaro

You kept from thinking and it was all marvelous. You were equipped with good insides so that you did not go to pieces that way, the way most of them had, and you made an attitude that you cared nothing for the work you used to do, now that you could no longer do it. But, in yourself, you said that you would write about these people; about the very rich; that you were really not of them but a spy in their country; that you would leave it and write of it and for once it would be written by some one who knew what he was writing of. But he would never do it, because each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all. The people he knew now were all much more comfortable when he did not work. Africa was where he had been happiest in the good time of his life, so he had come out here to start again. They had made this safari with the minimum of comfort. There was no hardship; but there was no luxury and he had thought that he could get back into training that way. That in some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went into the mountains to work and train in order to burn it out of his body.

Of Goose And Man

"Where in the world is Carmen?" Sandy Diego asked, as she slowly crept inch by inch closer to the edge of the cliff, threatening to undo all of her father's hard work. Oh I was born under a wanderers scarf, it is true, but lately, the way things been going, they're gonna crown o' thorn me anyway, so what else can a poor boy do, but to sing in a rock and roll band. When you were young and your heat was a drunken crook, you used to say live and let fry, you know you did, you know you did, you, no you DID NOT! And I'll be the first to hang my asre out there on the line fer ye Pops! Does anyone know where the love of God goes, when the gales of November come early?

Looking Out My Backyard

Joel has no control over when the movies start, because—as the original theme song stated -- "he used those special parts to make his robot friends." (Those "robot friends" being Cambot, Gypsy, Crow, and Tom Servo. The opening theme-song lyrics were changed repeatedly in later seasons to accommodate plot changes, like when Mike Nelson replaced Joel Robinson.) He must enter the theater when "Movie Sign" flashes, because Dr. Clayton Forrester (and in later seasons, his evil would-be tyrant mother Pearl) has numerous ways to punish Joel/Mike for non-compliance, including shutting off the oxygen supply to the rest of the ship, and electric shocks. As the movies play, the silhouettes of Joel/Mike, Tom, and Crow are visible at the bottom of the screen, wisecracking and mocking the movie (a practice they often referred to as "riffing") in order to prevent themselves from being driven mad.