I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allen Poe

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
-Bertrand Russell

What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
-James Branch Cabell

January 26, 2016 - 12:05 p.m.

A Trip On the Wayback Machine

It's one of those day that I'm not quite sure what I'm going to write. I have an idea but that might just end up being two lines. Sometimes things take off and sometimes they don't. I talked about this in therapy yesterday. I told her that I was pleased with my last entry and she wanted to know why. I realize I didn't tell her the pleasure I get when the ideas go straight from my brain to the words on the page. Funny that so did not happen in the last sentence; I couldn't figure out how to phrase that. I wanted to say from my brain to the paper but there is no paper. Then I realized that there is still a page.

I had half an hour after therapy to kill before the bagels became half-priced at my favorite store on University Place. I needed nasal strips and decided to buy them then. I walked down University looking for a drug store. I didn't see one and used google. It said there was one over on Broadway so I went there. They were out. I Googled again and found one on Astor Place. I was now another block further East and several blocks too far south. But they had it. I walked back to University and when I started walking up it found a CVS one block after I turned away. At least now I know for the future. I was going to go to the supermarket but I forgot to bring a shopping bag and didn't really need anything for last night so I went home. I stopped at the produce place near me for garlic and plantains. I made the wonderful dinner of sweet garlic chicken and fried plantains. The only problem is that the garlic is not fresh. Once I peeled the out paper off I saw that the cloves were already turning brown. Will they accept it if I return it? I guess I can try.

I actually talked on the phone last night, it was with Dan. We were texting but I got frustrated typing with my thumbs. And I just wanted to talk. I often feel isolated. I was going to say that may be why I blog but it's not. When I started blogging it was the least isolated time of my life. I was talking to friends every day except when I chose not to. I blog because I love when the thoughts go from my brain to the page and I love when I have to work at it but things come out the way I planned. I'm creating. Creation is a primal pleasure.

After dinner I watched the second half of Apocalypse Now. I chose the break strategically, after the bridge scene. As Willard said, "After this it's all Kurtz." That entire scene in the French plantation is just in the Redux edition isn't it? I don't remember it and I don't think it belongs. I don't see the point of it. Last night it struck me how similar Apocalypse Now is to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some of you are now thinking, "huh?" While others are seeing it. Both films spend a lot of time building a mystery, the monolith and Kurtz then finally the mystery is experienced and you still don't understand, it remains a mystery even when it's right in front of you. Nobody is sure what the ending of either film means. Coppola doesn't know himself, he shot different endings. The one I saw last night where Willard goes back on the boat is not one I had seen before. It's more of a resolution, there were endings where he just stands at the gate of the temple and one where there is the air strike.

The parts leading up to Kurtz were better than the parts with Kurtz. That might have been because Brando had gained so much weight that Coppola was forced to shoot much of the film in shadows. Kurtz was this super-disciplined paratrooper. He should be in great shape. He could have written around that and had Kurtz become something of a sybarite but that would change the character. As it is the film is one of the greatest, a classic. The AFI list puts it at number 28. If the second half had measured up to the first it would be top five, greater than the Godfather at least for my taste. It's still one of "my movies;" one I think of often.

When I was talking to Dan I told him about my old band, Batnose. I wanted to show him out website but it's long gone. But then I remembered The Wayback Machine. You put in a URL and it will find what was on it in the past. Not much is ever really erased from the Internet. So now you too can read about Batnose the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band at batnose.com. Make sure to read our bios. I'm still proud of this. Unlike other great bands we did not have to sully ourselves with actual performance or even all being in the same room together.

Getting that back inspired me to find my poetry page which was kept on Fruhead.com I had linked to it on Wise Madness. So now it's recovered and you can see Poetry Central. I used to write a lot of poetry. Some of it embarrasses me but some was not terrible. This was also my first foray into HTML, that's almost all bad. It's interesting to read what I wrote 12 to 16 years ago. I'm going to start posting some of them here. It started with acrostics. I wrote my first one around 1990. It was actually a double acrostic in three verses. The first letter of each verse spelled out the name of one of the Roches, the last letters spelled out Roche. I had to cheat a bit with Maggie as her first name has six letters. I don't have a copy of that left. That was done without a computer and I gave them my only copy. I left it on stage at a show. I got a letter back from their mother thanking me.

OK so what will I show you today. As I just explained a double acrostic I'll show you one. In this case I used the first letter of the last word to spell out the second words.

Lovers

Near in spirit though in distant Cities
Entwined by fate, though they are Apart.
A story not new but the heart of Romance.
Love is a word overused but Essential.
Sharing of souls is a primal Yearning.
Hers is his and his is hers Forever.
A man met a woman one Afternoon.
Not in the flesh but in cyber Reality
Kisses had to wait till Falcon Ridge.
Much had passed already in E-space.
A love had grown and so had the Longing
Now they are together, a couple in Love.

OK now it's time for breakfast.



I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.





Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018



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Horvendile January 26, 2016
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