I've Been Thinking About You Baby . . .

OK, so I know that maybe four people in the United States will understand how much this just absolutely rocks--The Twilights Singers have done a cover of Massive Attack's most recent single, "Live With Me." C'mon, how often does one of your top two favorite bands cover the other top favorite band?

OK, so here's the original Massive Attack version (though you will have to wait through 30 seconds of random prologue):

Orchestral, lush, and dark--it's red wine, dark chocalate and desire.

And here's the Twilight Singer version:

Just as dark, but slower, smokier--cigarettes, roses and passion.

These are the small things that make me feel whole on quiet nights.

Mushaboom

OK, so I haven't been on some self-pitying binge full of melancholy and darkness. Instead, I had a realization that, instead of working on a novel during this hiatus, I should instead be writing short stories--little creative outbursts that keep me writing, and instead of slogging through four months of hitting the square peg through the round hole, I get that accomplishment euphoria in a couple of weeks. I've finished one short story that I've sent to some friends for peer review--I realized it was a ghost story without a ghost, oh, and some quantum physics, halfway through writing it. I think I'll try something upbeat next. After I get a couple more stories out of the way, I'll start sending them to various lit magazines and see what happens. If I do get them published, then I'll have some lit cred to get some leverage for a novel.

In any event, I figure I owe whoever is still reading this blog something insanely cheerful for putting up with my absences. Here's the second (and better) version of the video for Feist's "Mushaboom." It's just so friggin' happy.

Incantations

Ah yes, here's the product of another self-imposed writing exercise, this time to see if I can write some Lovecraftian horror. The lesson learned? I'm not sure, other than trying not to info-dump is hard when your narrative depends heavily on dialogue. Bleah. Oh well.

Video from security camera #2, interrogation room #5A in Counterintelligence Field Activity station located in ______; 19:07 hours, April 11, 20__, ten days before discovery of the Ceres Object, three days before the Cincinnati Incursion, one day after the Lexington Hysteria:

The video is in color, but the walls are dark grey and the floor is concrete so that the video might as well be in black and white. As requisitions for higher quality recording devices have still yet to be approved, the video is of low quality such that the facial features of the subject and the two guards remain indistinct. (For photographs of the subject, please refer to CIFA File #1013AA Babel or the notes of Dr. G. Gustavson.)

The subject is seated in a plastic chair, hands cuffed behind his back and feet manacled to the floor. He is naked, and although the room is set to forty-degrees Fahrenheit, he does not appear to be suffering any discomfort. There are electrodes on various parts of his body that lead toward a machine at another end of the room. The subject is looking at the one-way mirror (framed at the right of the screen). On the top left of the screen is one of the guards in full body armor with his semi-automatic drawn and aimed at the subject’s head. The muzzle tip from the other guard’s sidearm located at the bottom left of the screen is the only sign of the other guard’s presence.

A voice off screen is heard. The quality of the recording is also poor. There is an underlying hiss of white noise.

“I apologize once again for these precautions. You understand that you make, well, quite a few people nervous. I’m sure that once you begin answering our questions, you will go a long way of dispelling our concerns.”

The subject speaks. “Dr. Gustavson, I’m not here to dispel any concerns. And even if I were, I’ve already answered your questions. You just aren’t listening.” Although the image is poor, there is a distinct feeling by several observers of the video that the subject is grinning.

“Well, maybe we aren’t. Please, explain it to us again. It doesn’t do us any good to have you in there like this, and it can’t be too enjoyable for you.”

“This? This is all irrelevant. Dr. Gustavson, did you know the Mayans invented the concept of zero seven hundred years before the Battle of Hastings, and almost a full millennia before the concept spread to Europe from India? This from a civilization that didn’t fucking use the wheel.”

“This is all very interesting, but . . .”

“But you’re not paying attention. Our geography, our culture, our environment drives us. The Mayans invented one of the most accurate calendars in the world at the time our ancestors were painting their asses blue. But they didn’t use the wheel because there were no fucking draft animals in the Americas. The Japanese have a highly stratified society, so is it any wonder that you have to add five syllables to create a negative sentence and three different syntaxes exist depending on whether you’re speaking to a superior, your equal or an inferior? You want me to tell you how I did it, but you’re all so obtuse. What you should be asking is how are they different from us? From where did they originate? Even if you knew the language, that knowledge will not make a bit of difference if you can’t think like them.”

“Well, how do they think?”

“Dr. Gustavson, you know that they say. ‘If you have to ask . . .’”

“Please, none of us have expended the amount of time or energy in the area of . . .”

Subject sighs. “I think I have been patient enough. You’ve found the mounds in southern Illinois, in Lesotho and in Tikrit. You have linguists and semiotic theorists working on this. If you can’t figure it out for yourself, then you don’t deserve the knowledge.”

“I don’t think my superiors will be too happy about your answer or your attitude.”

“Do you want an answer? Really? Hmmmm, fine. I’m just spinning my wheels here anyway. Are the recording devices in working order?”

Dr. Gustavson begins to stutter.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure they are. OK, ready for the answer?”

Subject opens his mouth. The audio plays something like a growl or guttural whisper, then becomes inaudible. The video recording warps and then goes to static. After 2.4 seconds, the video reestablishes and, implausibly, is sharper and clearer. There are thin lines on the bottom of the screen (which are determined to be the blood of PFC Walter Hillard–his body has still not been found). Off camera is a hysterical giggling. (Dr. Gustavson will be found playing in his own urine. As of this date, Dr. Gustavson remains in a manic, hysterical state.) The guard in the corner is naked and repeatedly smashing his head against the wall.

The subject is no longer in the chair. He appears walking from the bottom of the screen, back turned to the camera, buttoning up clothing taken from one of the guards. He then turns to the camera and directly addresses it.

“I want you to know this. I want you to know that I came here voluntarily. Do you understand? I wanted you to know the significance of my findings. I gave you every chance, but you just wouldn’t listen. They had so much power, but they didn’t have intelligence as we think of it. They had no need of a binding internal narrative. They had willpower and a binding purpose as an adaptation from a chaotic environment where decoherence did not exist. They had no need for an internal self-referential model of themselves where every possibility existed, but every need to manipulate those possibilities. And they are coming back, and don’t like what we have done in binding the world to one, uniform reality in our image. I will be ready, but I’m afraid you won’t. I would say good luck, but seeing what happened to Dr. Gustavson, well, I feel very very sorry for you all. I’m leaving now.”

2+2=5

So President Bush has just admitted that the CIA did have a secret program to interrogate terrorist suspects overseas, and is now making a big deal about sending these terrorists to Gitmo for trial where they are presumed innocent and the rule of law shall prevail. I'll leave aside the Chris Rock quote I have in my head ("You supposed to you low-expectation-having mutherfucker! What do you want, a cookie?")

Instead, I ask this question: Whatever happened to "Terrorism is not a law enforcement matter"?* Kinda sad that the MSM probably won't point out the fact that ol' Shrub, by now stating that he is for putting terrorists on trial instead of indefinitely detaining them overseas, is in essence stating that Kerry was right.

*10/10/04 Quote from "Face the Nation" by Ed Gillespie, Republican National Committee 2003-2005 Chairman, criticizing Sen. John Kerry

Come From Way Above . . .

Yup, that's right. Even more prose!

To become an angel, you must forsake your past. Family and friends are no different than old clothing and forgotten toys, to be left behind as unnecessary remnants of a life from which you are supposed to move on.

The path to become an angel, to leave onself behind, to open oneself to the Divine, is as individual and distinct for each person, though these paths can be overgeneralized into three categories. Some are led by the tried and true methods of sleep deprivation, of mob mentality, of physical and mental abuse alternating with praise and sympathy. Some are taught breathing exercises and meditation, to focus on everything and nothing and realize there is no difference. As there is a War ongoing, more and more are being led into the barracks, their heads placed in electromagnetic resonance helmets that directly induce rapture via manipulation of the parietal lobes. Except for the second grouping in which every so often a Principality and even one Power arose, those who arrive at the Waystation invariably only transcend to the rank of angel. If you need assistance in transcendence, you probably don’t have it in you to fly very far.

My path to the Divine was rather mundane. After a particularly bad break up, listening to Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song” over and over again, and finding myself tiptoed on the ledge of a Century City office building rooftop (and more importantly, being found by the security guard who had propped open the roof access to smoke a big fat joint of Mauwie Wauwie), I was given a choice of voluntary commitment and ongoing therapy or Transcendence. I loved my family and friends, all of whom wanted me to take the first option, but I realized I loved them in a way that I loved “Simpsons” reruns at 6:00 p.m. I know that might sound harsh, but that particularly bad break up was with a woman who with a love that felt like the fluttering of wings in my chest. After that, at least at that moment, every single thing in my life lost the sheen of importance. So I could either sit on a couch about shit that meant jack to me, or I could learn how to jump off a roof and soar into the air and not land as a 150 pound sack of meat, crumpling some jagoff’s penis substitute of a sports car.

The Los Angeles Waystation was located at the old Greyhound Station on 7th Street. Most of the homeless that had littered the streets were gone, having been among the first to enter into the Waystation to be transformed. Most of them were no doubt flying over Damascus, taking arms against Gadriel and the Sovereigns, or hunting down the Fallen or Non-Aligned (who, depending on the politician and faction, might as well be Fallen) in alleyways from Caracas to Wellington. When I entered the Waystation those months ago, I heard whispers that the Angels who floated above the entry, one black, square-jawed, and handsome, the other white, rugged and sandy-haired, both in bright platinum plating with Kevlar webbing, fiery swords and Glocks holstered, had been crackheads from the area who panhandled at the local McDonalds. Every so often, their fire in their eyes would alight, and they would perform some minor miracle on the few homeless who decided to stay mundane. Perhaps turning Chicken McNuggets into fresh strawberries, or providing moments of clarity, fifty dollars and a resume to a crack dealer.

Like all Waystations, the inside the larger than the outside, a strange phenomena that is necessary given the thousands of initiates who enter everyday, the tens of thousands who are housed and cared for until Transcendence. One the outside was a bus station that took up a square block of sun-addled concrete and weeds. But the inside was an elegant station of white marble doric columns, three story stained glass windows filtering a constant sunlight buttery in its texture, and a floor that seemed to extend hundreds of yards. I remember watch a show on Discovery Times with one of the Virtues, working with a quantum physicist at the University of Chicago, attempting to explain how this was possible. However, I got lost within the phrases like “static Planck measurement fallacy” and “dark energy substrates like rebar through concrete.” That small agnostic part of me smiled that there were those in the Hierarchy who sought answers after the first fall at the Battle of Antietam. Even when Raphael appeared on “Oprah” to proclaim once and for all that the world was not 6000 years old, and that the Bible was allegory (although Jesus did transcend), and none of the angels had any thoughts on abortion, there were still small-minded literalists who firebombed womens’ clinics and proclaimed only they knew God’s message.

The first step of a path was a questionnaire with 5000 questions. There were the standard personality type questions (At a party, which do you prefer? (a) To lead in the fun; (b) To sit back and people watch; (c) To hang out with your friends; (d) You’re just there for the free food). But there were some very odd questions (What does electricity taste like? True or false: The thought of warm oven mitts, wire mesh and orthopedic shoes excites me). The Powers who oversee the questionnaires take the time it takes to answer each question as well as the totality of the questionnaire into consideration.

Next was a physical battery. There were stress tests, laps around a track and in the pool. There was lifting of weights and throwings of balls. I was prodded and poked. Electrodes were attached. Blood was drawn. Probes were, well, inserted in areas where things are normally ejected.