sensuality washes over me
in a sudden whim of remorse
derived from a pure psychic dimension.
first uptight, I ease out
then submit and succumb
to this wasting away of pretensions.
in the end all the verve
that’s ever rattled this earth
is reduced to a single sensation.
and i’m staggered to find
that it’s only my birth.

       He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,


Enwrought with the golden and silver light,


The blue and the dim and the dark cloths


Of night and light and half-light,


I would spread the cloths under your feet


But I, being poor, have only my dreams;


I have spread my dreams beneath your feet;


Tread softly because you tread on my dreams...



-William Butler Yeats

I believe that one reason many people have serious doubts about those who genuinely purport to possess “psychic powers” is that such "powers" so often seem feeble in pragmatically assisting with real life and death concerns at hand.  Take for instance, the D.C. Sniper.  Why haven’t any notable psychics or remote viewers seemingly been able to assist with locating the perpetrator(s)?  Or are the investigators lax in failing to consult psychics/remote viewers in this matter?  Or are the psychics/remote viewers actually helpfully assisting in a manner that isn’t being divulged?

This morning, I tried myself to “psychically” gain access, a view, a clue about the perpetrator(s).  I relaxed in the shower under the pulsing torrent from the showerhead and prepared to slip like a voyeur into another’s awareness.  After a few moments, *other consciousness* appeared.   I felt, indeed, that I was “seeing” the world in real time from another’s point of view.  But whose?  The sense of “killer” was not impressing me.  And what did I “see”?  Hazily, the scuffle of a workplace with someone walking into a large building from outside.  And then the word “Minolta” came to me.  And that was that!

Ha ha.  Should I call the F.B.I. and reveal what I “know”?! 

The problem here is that many who do have just such glimpses or fleeting insights might, just might (not saying you or I do, but not saying you or I don’t either), have a small piece of valuable information that can’t possibly make sense except in the context of a larger framework remaining disjointed and hence unaccessed.   For instance, in a battlefield environment, soldiers are trained to report anything strange they notice (eg., lower than expected water in a stream, birds not singing when they normally do, fruit notably absent from a tree that should be in season, etc.)—even if they haven’t a clue about the value, explanation, or meaning of any of it.  Why?  Because military information specialists who assemble such information are well aware that certain “innocuous, isolated bits” of information often turn out to be essential in constructing intelligence about the larger picture.  If the water’s lower, maybe a damn is being constructed upstream.  If the birds aren’t singing, maybe they are dead from toxic chemical artifacts or they’ve been frightened by movement into quiescence.  If the fruit’s missing, maybe the enemy lunched (or perhaps just a hungry band of monkeys)??  Sometimes, only when all the “bits” are assembled far removed (consciously) from the “bit” collectors does the overall intelligence matrix begin to elicit the “Aha!” from those seeking to gain an added advantage.

So “Minolta” may not mean much to me—but who am I to judge?!

Yet I’m reticent to “divulge” my “knowledge.”  After all, I’m no longer an operative in a military unit that supports and encourages such fragmented reporting.  In fact, I’m of the opinion that if I “explained” just what it is that I “know” and how I “know” it, that I’d be treated, at best, with disdain.  This proportioned sense of reservation arising from a reasonable expectation of disparagement is what I call the “Psychic’s Dilemma.”

O well, possibly I know nothing!  I’m not currently aware enough (on this matter) to know if I know something!  But more importantly: I’m not networked anymore in the context of a formal intelligence matrix that sucks my mind for tidbits.  Hurray for me!   I think…

Hi,

This is Matt from Meetup. I just saw your blog, and your discussion about Int'l Xanga Meetup Day.

I wanted to let you know I've sent a note to the people at Xanga, hoping they can help get the word out to more people.

If you have any ideas how we can do more here, please let me know and we'll do our best. Thanks!

-matt

------------------------
Matt Meeker, Co-Founder
MEETUP (www.meetup.com)
email: matt@meetup.com
------------------------

Dear Matt,

I am no wizard but I can guarantee that if you offer complimentary wings and complimentary drinks at the meetups that a windfall of xangans will show their appreciation in irrepressible droves.  Also, I believe your organizational overhead could be reduced by holding the meetup at one locale only, say Honolulu, and providing complimentary transportation to all parties interested.

Please let me know how I can assist you in implementing these innovations.

   -nfp

You know, sometimes I get caught up in my own sweet (or just self-thinkingly sweet) verbiage. Fuck me when I do that.

Sodomy (Who’sSane?)  was unamimously elected with nary a dissenting vote in Iraq’s  11-million ballots-cast charade yesterday.  I think we can trust him concerning his reports on Iraq’s production and intended use of deadly offensive weaponry as much as we should rely on him to oversee and report upon a fair election, don’t you?  

Actually, I’d like to see the Sniper of D.C. ( to the tune of “The Barber of Seville”) apprehended and installed as the dictator of Iraq in Sodomy’s stead.  Maybe,like Buffalo Bill Cody shooting bison by railroad ride, he’d just spend his unlimited dictatorial powers hunting down the dozen or so look-alike Saddam-doppelgangers roaming the Iracky range. 

Or better yet:  Let’s just kidnap Saddam and force him to pump gas at a prominent locale in the D.C. area.  And make him sing the old Fred Allen Show commercial song: “You can trust your car to the general who wears the star, the big, bright, shoot-me-in-the-head star…”

Question: Who let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof)  ??

Answer: 'Cry 'havoc,' and let loose the Chihuahuas of inconvenience.'

But despite this blight of Saddam and his *democracy*, I believe that democracy in the world today still does well!

Take, for instance, the democracy of Google.  “Google??”, you say, “That’s a friggin' search engine!”   True, but Google’s spellchecker is a democratic tool:

Google's self-learning spellchecker automatically detects misspellings and suggests corrections. Using technology developed by Google, it is far more accurate than industry standard software.

   --Google

Here’s how, (when I’m undecided about the spelling of a word that’s not first covered by WordXP’s native software dictionary engine),  I often cast my vote with the internet’s “informed democracy”:

1)      I have the ever-convenient, freely-downloadable Google toolbar loaded in my browser’s menu bar.

2)    I type in the word whose spelling I’m (and WordXP is) unsure of (e.g.,  Arnold Scharzzenegger  )

3)    I hit the Google tool’s search button and (typically) within a second (or less) I'm presented with only 3 hits for my spelling and the prompt: Did you mean:schwarzenegger 

4)    I click on schwarzenegger  and again, in about a second, am presented with 308,000 hits—clearly referencing Arnold.

5)    I vote with the majority and decide to correct my spelling to go along with Google’s suggestion and the 100,000:1 odds.

This whole scenario requires maybe 5 or 10 seconds and provides me with a *rule-informed democratic choice*  much more consistently and rapidly than researching the *correct spelling* would by any other means.

Even for a commonly misspelled word like “Carribean” , Google will return 221,000 hits and then prompt: Did you mean:caribbean  ?  Following that quick link, one finds that 4,777,000 hits spell it otherwise.  So in my mind, *otherwise* democratically rules!

Real linguists know that all languages *live*--and, in my estimation, sustaining such life through Googles’ “informed, democratic” spellchecker is as American as apple pye.

Okay--is this a fortuitously precocious xangascoop (I just *stumbled* upon it and haven't seen it advertised anywhere in Xanga yet!!) ??

Or is Monsur just *testing* something out before considering pushing it into production ??

International Xanga MEETUP Day !!!

*checks pulse, feels the blood of the blog rushing through the cartoid artery*

Today, after my 10K cemetery run,



instead of sitting and pondering the scenery and letting the muse take hold of me, I have decided to take hold of her. I’m taking her in my arms, settling down into the tranquil clover,



and we’re staring out into the autumn sky blue imagining the constellations we’d be beholding were it nighttime.



And, oh yes, for this date with my muse, I’ve not brought the standard fare of cheap American draft, but rather a renowned English stout…



What more can I say than that the lady elicits class ?!

Quite the angel is this muse of mine.



And the way she tickles my ear when she whispers words is a pleasure oh so fine. Yet, just when I’m prepared for the ultimate dalliance, the wind whisps and whips, and aflight, she’s away with the breeze. Ah! If only my passions could ease so effortlessly.

But I’m a patient man and shall wait, if necessary, for a heartbeat short of eternity for the return of my muse with her inspirations. Or, if mortally blessed I am, merely until that day when my truest love, for whom the muse was fancifully standing-in for silly-grin foreplay, shall verily be mine.

*Sunday interlude*

I just again stole the time (*points to self ß #1 Most Wanted Time Bandit*) to run again in the cemetery.  It’s only 55 F and I was in short-everything but that inspired me to run hard enough to heat myself by thinking of…hrm .

Now leaning against old Jeptha Wade’s monument and sloshing down a refreshment while typing a word or two.

Ah…so this crispness and baby-stark freshness is what fall’s all about—not bad!  *listens to the wind tease the surrounding trees’ leaves into a changeable imminence*

Just remember all time is your time—my time is zoned-away

What follows is an enhanced (i.e., re-elaborated) moment of BlogChat:

And when the question arose: “What are your fantasies?”

The (nf)Prophet replied: “I only fantasize what it would be like not to be in love when I am  in love.”

His friend sought clarification: “So you don’t believe in love?”

Smiling, the nf(Prophet) affirmed: “ Yes, of course, I do.  It’s just that when you find yourself truly in love, the only fantasy possible—and it’s one with a darkening downturn—is to imagine not being in love at all.  All else then that might otherwise  be fantastical rings true of fulfilling possibility.  So lovers don’t need to fantasize…they dream themselves towards a mutually emergent reality.  Actually, when I am in love, I prefer to dream endlessly without fantasy.  Such is called dreaming with pure intent.  It is limitless and the basis of all that’s magical.”

Columbus Day (Oct 14th) : What can you say?  Less notable historically than he himself and much of modern written history has made him out to be, Columbus was just a third-string discover of the "New World" (after Herjólfsson/Eriksson and Zheng He) who should nevertheless be credited with what historians call the Columbian Exchange—the two-way transfers of diseases, plants, animals, and cultures that followed Columbus’s voyages. Diphtheria, measles, smallpox, and malaria traveled to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Syphilis found its way back to Europe (So you mean that Columbus was just fucking around ?!). And…oh yes…the disease, forced labor, invasion, and conquest imposed by the Europeans caused the deaths of millions of America’s indigenous peoples, in what surely must be considered one of the darkest tragedies of all time.

In those days, the Europeans, for the most part, had built up immunities to the diseases they brought with them.  Some claim it was their longstanding close association in the typical household with pets and other domesticated animals which acted as the initial vectors of disease that enabled Europeans to develop more robust resistances over time.  The native Americans, on the other hand, essentially had no pets or domesticated animals in their living quarters.  As such, they lived *more cleanly*, but stood openly susceptible to such species-hopping infections when the germ-ridden yet mostly impervious foul-hardened Europeans arrived.

Well, well, well...what goes around...may now have come back:

The new findings, published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, add to a growing collection of evidence for the "hygiene hypothesis." This theory suggests that 20th century advances like indoor plumbing, antibiotics and cleaner homes may have contributed to recent increases in allergy, asthma and eczema by decreasing rates of childhood infection. Some infections early in life, the argument goes, help the immune system develop properly.

—Denise Grady, "Environment Rich in Germs May Reduce Risk of Asthma," The New York Times, September 19, 2002

And so Paul McFedries on his WordSpy site observes:

...so the theory goes, the more germ-free an environment is, the fewer antibodies a kid's immune system will create. This not only leads to an overall weakness in the immune system, but it also means the immune responses will often be downright strange, such as skirmishing with normally harmless substances like cat dander, pollen, and peanuts.

Over there on the left  and down *<-- points*  I've changed the *nfp damncam* .  Now "better than ever before"  mwuahaha

Actually, it's now an enhanced multimedia server with streaming video, streaming audio, and ...and streaming capture of my actual desktop (of course, all will be *motionless* unless I'm at home doing something).

Well, I'm off to work now to see how this all appears from a distance...

Update: Oops!  I forgot that my service provider blocks the default port 80 for web serving.  I had to redirect this to a different port.  It should be working now ?!

Whose afraid of the big bad wolf? The big blog wolf?  The bad blog would?

Whose afraid of the big bad blog? Tra la la la la !

Well, I asked her to shave my head, but she only buzzed it.  Yep, I told the hair stylist that my daughter thought I should get it shaved (mebbe) and that yesterday a drunken buddy of mine put me to the same challenge, so I explained “What the hell, it’s not like I have to look at myself all the time…so go ahead.”   But instead, she stopped short and said “I think you’ll younger with just a close buzz.”  So damn.   There I was taking strange female advice again…

Night is always a dying of the light.
And yet, we know, that the light does no where go
Except earthround for all of us to share.

Someday, perhaps, there will be a magnetic rail around the world
On which a shuttling city does propel itself
Ever westward to achieve a Helios-stasis
And be ever brilliantly fixated under a ceaseless noonday sun.

And in precise opposition upon a parallel track
There will be a metropolis of the night
Pulsing ever eastward under unending starlight
Never again to see the light of day.

If you come upon that someday to have the opportunity and necessity to reside in only one for the rest of your life, which ticket will you buy?

(like both last Saturday's and Sunday's posts, this is another post-seven mile run cemetery blog)

Yes, I love xanga and enjoy immensely being part of the community. Even john, CEO-type of xanga, has acknowledged in BlogChat : "nfp, I know that you love xanga." And I think that's the only reason he has tolerated me. Yes, I have pushed, pulled, stretched, and contorted xanga every which way and that. Many of you would be thoroughly shocked to know some of the things that I've endeavored "behind the scenes". But when the dust settles, expect me to be backing xanga big! xanga's either has itself been or served as the only portal in my life over the last couple of years for any fun. Just the word *xanga* in my mind resonates vibrant sourcepaths to: 1) creation, 2) celebration, and 3) merriment.

Still, I've got this fascination with independence. Hence: MOB (My Own Blog): http://nfp.kicks-ass.net:8080 . I think (*crosses-fingers*) that I've finally figured out how to run my own blog software (Greymatter) on my own home PC/server while 1) circumventing the port limitations of my cable provider (Cox closes that standard web server port 80), 2) locking down my server software (Jana proxy server) from intrusion, and 3) erecting the best firewall safeguards (Sygate 5.0 Pro).

What's the advantage of having my own blog?

1) If xanga goes down for an extended period of time for whatever reason, I still have a blog entirely under my control.

2) I can submit my own blog's contents for searchability to the major internet search engines. xanga's blogs, for the most part, are not searchable by Google, or Yahoo, or Northern Lights or any of the conventional search tools. xanga, for the most part, is hidden from everyone but xangans. By replicating my posts on my own blog and submitting them for spidering (searchability), I can gain an exposure for my ideas in the cyber forum of the entire internet world.

3) I can connive furtively to take blogging to the *next level*--whaterver that means!!! Actually, what I have in mind is integrating chat and video and audio and enhanced reader interactions more tightly into a one-stop blog. xanga could do it, but *community considerations* renders the implementation of such changes as slow as the flow of molasses. But I, in and of myself, can kick-ass! And so I shall, God and Allah and all the fish in the sea willing!

A casual friend of mine, a fairly reputable psychiatrist who works for the Cleveland Clinic, calls Saddam Hussein…*SoDamn Insane*  mwuahahaha

But is it insane or just gutsy of Saddam to challenge Bush to a duel ? What could be more American than a duel—gunslingers rat-a-tat-tatting at each other?  Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, of course, were the parties in the most famous American political duel to date.  Burr’s shot was true and felled Hamilton who died the next day.  Though buried in mid-summer, you would have thought it was a dreary day in mid-winter the way all the peeps stood around Hamilton’s gravesite muttering *burr* in chilled underbreaths as they interred him in the ground.

But back to the Bush and Saddam matchup…Will Bush get to choose the weapon to be used?  If so, I think he should choose Apache helicopters armed with visor-directed laser-guided missiles.  I have a feeling that Bush’s more ready access to this weapon and to those who have expertise in using it will provide him a critical training advantage over SoDamn.  Hey, if you’re challenged, you get to pick the weapon, right?  Well, Bush was challenged, so line up those Apaches!  And if Saddam doesn’t have any, he can bring a vial of anthrax or smallpox as his alternative weapon of choice—we’ll just have to insure that Bush is vaccinated before the confrontation.

But really what I'd rather see is a team of “our best’ elite warriors versus their “best warriors” go at it man-on-man on a deserted Carribbean island.  Or even our “best politicians” versus theirs.   Let’s see…hrm…we have Jesse Ventura (Gov. of Minnesota), Clint Eastwood (mayor of Carmel, CA), Arnold Schwarzenegger (positioning to run for governor of CA)…either way: we win!  we win!  mwuahaha

Now I understand why some Americans and fellow-xangans don't want to see an armed conflict with Iraq.  That's a conscientious thing that even I wrestle with (no , Jesse, not yet ).  But to those of you thus inclined, I ask you (and you should ask yourselves) honestly: Would it also turn your stomachs to see Bush (or better, our proxy warriors or proxy politicians) win in a duel?   If so, it's plain and simple: fuck you.

Just curious to know if anyone other than myself has ever experienced occasions of eidetic overlay?  “Eidetic overlay,” you say, “what the hell’s that?”   Well, yes, I’d best explain since I just coined the term and really am not at all aware if anything like it is recorded in the journals of the psychology of perception.  In all fairness, it may well be that what I term *eidetic overlay* is a common phenomenon otherwise labelled—but that I’ve just simply never myself encountered it in literature or heard anyone else ever speak of it.  For if I were to author two encyclopedias, one of my knowledge and one of my ignorance, the latter would dwarf the former by far!  So my *not having heard something* signifies to me little concerning existence, but much concerning my own possible lack of awareness.  Nonetheless, just in case…

Eidetic overlay is a memory-induced perceptual state I’ve experienced occasionally in my life where one perception, apprehended eidetically or in a *photographic* sense, is recalled in its still heightened sense when the original object of perception is encountered again anew eidetically (i.e., by *photographic memory*).  The collision of the eidetic recall with the new eidetic apprehension causes the former to overlay the latter thus instantaneously creating yet a newer sequentially framed perception of the object—in this simple case, a “two-frame movie”, so to speak.  Perhaps it’s better if I give you an example of this—something that happened to me yesterday:  I was driving into the city and from 20 miles away I took in a view of the cityscape.  I keyed on the tallest building of the city and that was that.  But later on at lunch time when I sitting on a bench near this building, I happened to gaze up it and that’s when the first “cityscape image” overlaid the then current “looking up” image to make a little movie for me to look at.  I then laid down on the bench, closed my eyes, soaked in some sun, and about ten minutes later just flashed my eyes open again.  I thus took the building in from a slightly different perspective and this became the *third* eidetic image now joined by the previous two-frame to become a three-frame movie.  And then I closed my eyes and played it precisely back: Yes, my brain was constructing eidetic video: three separate, yet all vivid and detailed images, now conjoined into a sequence and now likely waiting to be potentially joined by my next eidetic intake of the perceptual target. 

Ah, but things can get crazier yet.  One time for me, this sort of sequencing of an object went on everyday for almost a month.  So that by the end of that period, I had a vivid sequence of 20 or more images all chronologically arrayed—and all always triggered and augmented by the very next visual encounter. 

All of this, let me state, is not just a matter of “remembering and reflecting” upon what something previously perceived was like when encountered again.  Rather, than being a cognitive impression, it’s really a perceptual assault: the object “as seen” is overlaid with the precise vividities with which is was previously seen thus creating and unreeling a realistic hallucination.   Yes, I suppose it is a hallucination, generally speaking, since one has the distinct impression of “seeing” more than is “really” there.  But it’s not a hallucination in the sense that anything’s imagined.  Rather, time is compressed out and what is “seen” is a trans-temporal, multi-faceted distillation of a subject in more fullness and richness. 

Is this making any sense?  Or haven’t the drugs worn off yet?

If making sense, then perhaps I’ll soon relate a mutational experience of eidetic overlay where the sequentially-tagged on images were not of the same object as encountered in the moment and dream imagery inserted itself to make the act of perception stranger yet...

Are you one of those people that end up staying to watch all the after-credits to a movie at the theater?  Are you so fascinated by the inexorable roll of names that you become helplessly entrained to the spectacle of appellations thus majestically displayed?  If so, you may want to exit stage right just as fast as you can before the applet below launches into a tribute to all my nearly 700 awesome subscribers (the 16 anonymous ones are not here credited )...

Update: Due the tyranny of *alphabetic order* when presented monopolistically, I am offering several alternatives to better accommodate all of you here below:

P.S., the above was brought to you courtesy of my understanding of "Location Theory" as propounded by Alfred Weber.

Anything really world-shaking going on?   Sitting out for lunch just now in a downtown park on a still very summerlike day, I felt the world shake quite discernibly (physical=quake, psychical=shake) and am wondering if it matches up to anything in the noosphere?   No, I’m not spoofing or being disingenuous.  I’ve just today been feeling like I’m on a heightened edge of consciousness, with all my senses hyper-keen and my breath flowing freely and deeply.  In the past, another such perceived world shake moment for me turned out to correspond to a political catastrophe.  But for all I know in this instance, if my apprehension does match up to anything real, it could be as isolated a matter as an unyet discovered species of Amazon flower going extinct.  Or an alien spacecraft bearing gifts and heading for Earth inexplicably self-destructing in deep unobserved space.   Or… *hesitates to further speculate*   *stretches heavenward*   Why is life such a paradoxical delight?

What if I told you…

It pains me to witness the destructive power of ego as it lays waste to the blogging countryside.  I don't think there's a lot we can do about that, but it's truly shaking my faith in the blogging medium itself.

and…

lately blogs have got me down.

hence…

working on a series of articles that I am tentatively calling The Mental Illnesses of Bloggers.

because…

There seems to be something about the blog format itself that seems to encourage an almost cancerous growth of our egos.

Now what if I told your these words aren’t mine but those of xanga’s blogmaster (CEO-type), John, as shared-widely in two successive articles on Microcontents News? !

I know John has been dealing with quite a few incidents of blogging harassment lately.  I even assisted as an intermediary yesterday between John and a blogger who turned to me seeking some relief from a blogging stalker.  And I imagine, along with the efforts that John has been exerting in such matters comes something of a “siege mentality” with a resultantly less than utopian view of the burgeoning Blogosphere.

But to indict the blog format itself as a predisposition to illness?  

In my own experience, especially of late, I have sat purely inspired, played with words, written first, and blogged only as an afterthought. I simply was too aroused by the muse and oblivious to the “blog format” to permit it to “encourage” me. 

But maybe, from a practical viewpoint, what we all need to do once in a while is say fuck it.  fuck blogging. fuck the whole sense of importance assigned to it.  fuck lifetime membership in a format that encourages ego cancer.  But never forget: bloggers are people, too.  Hence, fuck the format, but power to the peeps.

There.  Now I feel better.  Good enough even to restate my original vision (4/5/2001) here:

Is blogging a new and emerging literary/graphical/(perhaps even audible) art form?  Should it, will it rank among other genre of recognized expression such as the novel, the essay, the poem, the sketch?  Will the “Art of Blogging”  be a credited English course in tomorrow’s universities (surely, the kiss of death) ?

I dare to struggle and say: yes.

Though like a journal in having a timeline that flows like a river carrying fluid thoughts to the sea, the key to this art form (dare I say that?) is its performance: its interactivity.  The best of posts, uncommented, remains the haunting one hand clapping in the forest—which is a rare and ethereal accomplishment: a pure essence of expression, standing by itself, pristine, an incontrovertible entity.  But the highest form of blogging always invites response: the initial post is one hand posed awaiting the second hand, the comment,  which issues the *clap* or sometimes the *smack* or sometimes a chaos of *slaps*, *hugs*, and *gawks*.  So the timeline of expression invites a timeline of response—and thus the blog is woven as a form for all to see.  Hence blogging distinguishes itself as a most genuine form of expression—and is utterly artistic at its height—when it creates community.

 That being said, may I now add: let us all welcome ourselves to this expressive insurgency!