A Thousand Stories : Volume 0 : Stories 0901-1000 : Brown

a thousand stories

j. blasso-gieseke

a thousand stories volume 0 : stories 0901-1000 : brown

j. blasso-gieseke

Books in the Series A Thousand Stories volume 1 : stories 0001-0100 : black volume 2 : stories 0101-0200 : gray volume 3 : stories 0201-0300 : white volume 4 : stories 0301-0400 : yellow volume 5 : stories 0401-0500 : orange volume 6 : stories 0501-0600 : red volume 7 : stories 0601-0700 : purple volume 8 : stories 0701-0800 : blue volume 9 : stories 0801-0900 : green volume 0 : stories 0901-1000 : brown

a thousand stories

Published by Charybdis Press charybdispress.com © 2021 Charybdis Press All rights reserved First Edition No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher, except in the context of reviews.

Many stories in this book are fiction. Any characters resembling actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Cover: 16 point Meridien Title: 14 point Futura Text: 10.5 point Caslon Layout & Design: J. Blasso-Gieseke ISBN 978-1-957399-09-6

For You and Baba, and the Muse too, and Hermes three

The author would like to thank Niall Twohig, Francesca Ferranti, and Josephine Blasso for their editorial aid, and Matthew A. Brown for his suggestions on the Preface. The book was made better by their time and attention. Still, any faults found in the stories are wholly my own.

Contents 0901. I Blame the Delay on René 0902. Down the Girardian Rabbit Hole 0903. Up the Girardian Rabbit Hole 0904. Good Mimesis 0905. The Two Nick Caves 0906. Moby-Dick, or the Whale 0907. Let’s Start Listing Words Starting With the Letter T 0908. Sometimes When You Think About Evil It Manifests 0909. How to Blank Thich Naht Hahn 0910. Winner of the Hairiest Ass Crack Contest 0911. An Ordinary Day 0912. Original Response 0913. Beware the Aphantasiacs 0914. The Horseless Headsman 0915. Let’s Start Listing Words Starting With the Letters U & V 0916. But Not the Baron 0917. The Unmunchausens 0918. The Münchhausen Trilemma 0919. How to Become a Master of Life 0920. The Punch in the Balls Is Called a Revolution 0921. The Dignity of “Poverty” 0922. Learning to Do With Less 0923. The Foundation Foundation 0924. Scene 24 0925. Let’s Start Listing Words Starting With the Letters W, X, Y & Z 0926. Pubbup.com 0927. Pianissimo 0928. Even Their Ghosts Were Gone 0929. What’s Left Behind 0930. Animal Magnetism 0931. Xtlxtli, the Arthropod Aliens 0932. M’lylu, the Cephalopod Aliens 0933. Dagonites, the Fish Aliens 0934. Drakons, the Reptile Aliens 0935. Yetu, the Mammal Aliens 0936. Crazy Cuckoo Bird 0937. Cloud Cuckoo Land 0938. The Joy of Cuckooing 0939. The Hypocritical Oath

0940. Rum & Cookies 0941. A Science Fiction Horror Western Film 0942. The Agon of Schiele 0943. The Three Stages of Awareness 0944. The Three Reactions to the Ironic Stage 0945. The Three Barriers to the Cosmic Stage 0946. Reality, Sometimes It Becomes Real Boring and Uninspiring 0947. The Other Day I Thought About Killing Myself 0948. L’esprit d’escalier 0949. Flatland 0950. The Fourth Spatial Dimension 0951. The Other Fourth Dimension 0952. Scientific Romances 0953. Inward, Not Upward 0954. The Gospel of Four Dimensions 0955. Entering the Fourth Dimension and Beyond 0956. What’s Next?

0957. From the Quills of Disinterested Archons 0958. Ditkoesque Diskoteque 0959. Henotic Hologrammar 0960. The Power of Story 0961. The Sorcerer 0962. The Promethean Mystery as an Allegory for Class War 0963. Beyond the Claustrophobic Confines of Ourselves 0964. The Betwixt Between 0965. A Thought Experiment 0966. Continuum, Residuum, and Vacuum 0967. Swimming Through a Sea of Diatoms 0968. The Thing in the Room 0969. He Knew They Were Out There 0970. A Single Plateau 0971. Destroy the Circle First 0972. Spring Theory 0973. The Meta-Comic and the Modern Court Jester 0974. The Book of Miracles 0975. The Mountain of Corpses 0976. Creep 0977. On the Nature of the True Cross 0978. The Weird 0979. The Strange 0980. The Uncanny 0981. Notes to Ward off Screen Fictions 0982. The Nature of Art and the Art of Nature

0983. Screens Are Natural 0984. The Reality of Screens 0985. Screens Are Double-Edged Swords 0986. We Have a Long History of Utopian Story Screens 0987. Topias of Non-Fiction and Fiction 0988. The Impossible Becomes the Possible, the Subjective Becomes the Objective 0989. Everything We Have, We Have Because of Fiction 0990. Blank Page Worship 0991. The Spirit, Mind, and Body of a Book 0992. Stoppin’ by for Dinner 0993. Payin’ for Your Meal 0994. Service Station 0995. Kenosis 0996. There Is Another 0997. Enambered Again 0998. Story Lord 0999. Live Long and Prospero 1000. Loveverepeating 1001. Backword Postface

a thousand stories

0901. I Blame the Delay on René

I could’ve completed this book in a year. I could’ve, if it wasn’t for René Girard…

For those of you who haven’t read Girard, or even heard of him, he was one of the greatest thinkers and storytellers of our time. Over the course of his life, he put together a theory of our human cult and culture that is nothing short of astonishing in its scope.

It all begins with the concept of mimetic desire.

Mimetic desire is formed from a triangle between 1) the hero, 2) the desired object, and 3) the mediator, who is the source of inspiration for the desired object. Mimetic desire creates a rivalry between the hero and the mediator, who usually possesses, and therefore is an obstacle to, the desired object. But what makes the hero’s desire mimetic, what makes it imitative, is that the hero’s desire doesn’t come spontaneously from the hero, but rather comes from the mediator. So, not only does the hero desire what the mediator desires; the hero, consciously or unconsciously, desires the mediator, and wants to become them.

Girard discovered mimetic desire while working on his Ph.D. in history and teaching French literature at Indiana University. Trying to come up with a way of talking to his students about the novels he taught in his course, Girard noticed similar patterns of behavior in the novel’s characters. Returning to the greatest works of Western literature, Girard found the presence of mimetic desire in all of them and detailed his discoveries in his first book, Deceit, Desire and the Novel.

0902. Down the Girardian Rabbit Hole

After reading Girard, I saw mimetic desire everywhere around me.

Capitalism, social media, fashion, advertising, all of it ran on this principle.

Girard saw this too, and, after detailing mimetic desire and its unconscious capture by our greatest writers in his first book, he wanted to prove that mimetic desire is a universal human impulse that undergirded all of our relationships.

Girard began what could only be called an anthropological dig into our pre-history and earliest mythologies. After writing two smaller works on Proust and Dostoevsky, Girard wrote his second major work, Violence and the Sacred, which traces mimetic rivalry back through time to our origins. Because mimetic rivalry could become a contagion of violence capable of destroying primitive societies, Girard searched for ways in which this rivalry and violence could be safely harnessed and discharged.

It’s here where Girard made his second great discovery: the scapegoat mechanism.

The scapegoat mechanism is employed when the internal tension of a community reaches a breaking point from mimetic rivalry and is about to destroy itself in violence. In order to prevent this, the community chooses a scapegoat from amongst their number. The scapegoat is an insideoutsider who is blamed and murdered for all the evils that have befallen the community. Since the murder of the scapegoat is an act perpetrated by the entire community, the violent force of mimetic rivalry is discharged against the scapegoat, allowing the order and unity of the community to be restored. But mimetic rivalry is such a destructive force that the scapegoat mechanism must be ritually repeated.

0903. Up the Girardian Rabbit Hole

In Violence and the Sacred, Girard establishes the scapegoat mechanism as a release valve for mimetic rivalry. Working forward through time, he shows how the killing becomes ritualized and tied to seasonal phenomena and the cycles of birth and death. This creates a priest class that performs and attends to the function of this ritual, which is eventually codified into religious rites.

This ascendency of the priestly class coincides with the rise of the scapegoat into a formidable position of power. From the perspective of the community, the scapegoat is not only the cause of all the evil when they’re alive, but are also the cause of all the good when they die. The scapegoat, with their ability to both curse and bless a community, becomes a person to be feared and worshipped. The scapegoat’s potent singularity raises them into a position over the community, creating the first kings and queens, gods and goddesses. Over time, the ritual sacrifice of kings and queens is replaced by animal sacrifice, leaving the living kings and queens to preside over the seasonal rituals with their priests.

When Girard reaches this point, he makes his third great discovery: Christ ends this cycle of sacrificial murder and the social order built upon it by offering himself as the ultimate human sacrifice and scapegoat for the sins of all mankind. Girard details this in his book Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. Through this study, Girard, a Frenchman who was raised Catholic by default, undergoes his own religious transformation from non-believer to practicing Catholic.

0904. Good Mimesis

Girard wrote one of the most comprehensive human narratives of the 21st century — and no one’s talking about him. Using mythological, anthropological, historical, and literary sources, he tells the entire story of our cult and culture from its origins to today with a breadth, depth, and elegance that is awe-inspiring.

Whether his analysis is correct or not is inconsequential, I’ll never know one way or the other. What I do know is that he devised a total story of the human race like no one else I had read before. And it’s because of this that I lost four months of writing between March and July 2019. I couldn’t break free from his narrative spell and stalled at story 0243. The Four Primordial Lords on March 16th and didn’t return to writing story 0244. Seeding until July 13th.

While reading Girard, a question came to me: If mimetic desire and its resulting rivalry and contagious violence are destructive forces found within communities from pre-history to the present, could we evolve, or are we evolving, constructive forces of mimetic co-operation that can heal our fragmented communities without resorting to scapegoatism and its attendant persecution and murder?

It turns out Rebecca Adams already had the same question and asked Girard about the goodness of mimetic desire. Girard responded that mimetic desire is in itself neither good nor bad, but pointed out that Jesus himself advocated mimetic desire by having his disciples imitate him in the same manner he imitated God the Father, proving that good mimesis can exist between ourselves and others.

0905. The Two Nick Caves

I just learned that there are two massively talented Nick Caves in the world.

The first Nick Cave I knew about was and is the eponymous front man of the Bad Seeds. I’ve listened to this Nick Cave’s music for years and have been especially thankful for his resurrection of the murder ballad into public consciousness with his 1996 album Murder Ballads and its wonderful rendition of American murder ballad classic Stagger Lee. This Nick Cave has made his spiritual home in the King James Bible and the American South and has drawn from the deep well of African-American musical traditions, merging it with his own Australian punk upbringing, and fusing it into his incredibly unique music, songwriting, screenwriting, and fiction.

The other Nick Cave I just learned about is a dancer, performance artist, sculptor, and fabric sculptor. I was blown away when I came across a post that showed several of his soundsuits, wearable sculptures that completely envelop the wearer in the manner of African and Carnival ceremonial masks and costumes. The name soundsuit comes from the noise the suit makes when worn and danced in. They are beautiful to behold and are displayed as static sculptures or are integrated into enchanting dance performances. This Nick Cave developed his first soundsuit out of sticks in 1992 in response to the Rodney King beatings.

As a black man, the suit allowed Cave to hide his race, class, and gender from the racial violence of the outside world.

Imagine what a collaboration between these two artists would look and sound like…

0906. Moby-Dick or the Whale

I wanted to write something about Moby-Dick, but didn’t know how to approach it. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but was uncertain how I could capture my love for it in a story, because it drew so many thoughts to mind that I couldn’t organize them into a cohesive whole. But I’ll try: In Newcastle, Niall tells me in a graveyard by the sea that Moby-Dick is an anatomy. It’s the first time I’ve heard the term. He tells me Northrop Frye coined it. I knew Frye from his book on Blake. Later I learned, it was derived from Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy. The anatomy idea intrigues me: It’s the place where all the odd bits of fiction fit.

I imagine Moby-Dick on its back being slowly vivisected. As its organs are removed, Ahab gives an impassioned speech recounting his victory over the great white Leviathan until he turns into a cartoon parody of himself and begins stumping around on his peg leg mumbling about catching his foe, Dicky Moe. As this is happening, Moby-Dick’s tail splits to form legs and feet, and his flippers stretch and extend into arms and hands, and the great bulk of his head shrinks into a human head.

The huge albino man opens his eyes on the slab, sits up, and begins gathering up his guts. When everything’s packed back inside, the scalpel wound mends itself along the linea alba, completing his evolution into the deranged genius, the great white Behemoth, Judge Holden, from Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece, Blood Meridian.

0907. Let’s Start Listing Words Starting With the Letter T total, totem, torment, torture, tort, tart, torque, talk, talc, tack, tick, toe, tictac-toe, tit, titan, titanic, titanium, tighten, taught, teach, tear, tare, tarry, tar, tore, taint, told, toad, tank, tent, tape, table, topple, tipple, taper, tapir, tapper, top, tip, typical, timpany, tint, tilt, tall, tale, talent, tailor, tomato, tomahawk, tomography, trombone, trope, troll, trawl, trail, trailer, train, trait, tract, trace, trow, true, truth, trooper, trapper, traipse, trout, truth, tumor, tumescent, tumulus, toothless, tooth, teething, teat, teepee, tepid, teaser, tea, teak, teal, team, television, teddy, tawdry, torpor, toner, tanner, taser, tamer, tamarind, tamale, tome, tomorrow, today, toke, token, toast, tarmac, tanager, tanker, tantalizing, tarantula, target, tautology, tawny, tamper, tinder, tender, ten, tang, tongue, tongs, tone, town, tout, trout, throat, thrive, threw, through, threaten, theremin, theology, theatre, theatrics, theme, thermometer, thermonuclear, thyroid, thymus, thistle, thing, thimble, thumb, thirsty, third, toxicology, toxin, taxonomy, tax, tab, table, tabletop, taste, task, tarp, tarpaulin, tardigrade, tarnation, tensile, tense, tight, tie, type, typology, tertiary, turtle, tortoise, terrapin, teratogen, teratology, turpitude, turd, turnip, turn, tern, terse, testicle, test, tesseract, tuber, tutor, tutelage, tributary, tribulations, tribunal, tribune, trial, triage, triune, trinity, triple, tripe, trip, tryst, trick, trim, trachea, tracheotomy, track, trammel, tram, transvestite, transform, transfix, transcend, tranquility, tranquilizer, trapeze, trigonometry, trident, tried, tired, terrified, terror, turf, turbot, turbulence, toilet, toil, toy, tyrant, tire, tier, teeming, tedious, tumultuous, tumulus, tumescent, tomb, too, toot, took, take, tact, tactile, tactician, titillation, tingle, tangle, tussle, tug, tag, tile, toll, tollbooth, trolley, tattle, title, titular, tryptamine, trichome, tree, treetop, ton, tonnes, thyme, time, timothy, treason, tread, trek, treble, tremble, tremors, torrent, tor, tantra, tantrum

0908. Sometimes When You Think About Evil It Manifests Last night, I was thinking about all the evil businesspeople and politicians who have caused nothing but pain, devastation, and death in the world.

I wondered why we continued to allow these psychosociopaths to gain power in society. It really makes no sense why the entire apparatus of our laws and government aren’t set up to put these people into rehab before they can cause major damage to people and planet. As soon as they become multimillionaires, they should be rounded up and aggressively rehabilitated. No one should have that much money, power, and influence over the rest of us.

As I was thinking this, I felt something bite down on my right foot.

Knowing what it was, I didn’t panic. When I looked, there was a demon with its beaked mouth clamped tightly on my foot. It was large and muscular with two long horns coming out of the top of its head ending in eyeballs. It was trying to pull me into the fire out of which it came. I told it I couldn’t follow it down, but it could follow me up.

As I floated upwards, it held on tenaciously. When I reminded it that it would be destroyed by God’s light, it loosened its bite enough so I could pull my foot free. As it fell, it opened its mouth. Inside was a circular row of teeth and at the back of its throat was a large eye that stared at me hatefully. I thanked the demon for its efforts and gave it a departing blessing.

0909. How to Blank Thich Nhat Hahn

Many years ago, Niall introduced me to the writings of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh and his idea of Interbeing has stayed with me since I first read his work.

The concept of Interbeing is simple and profound and the word sums up its meaning perfectly and tidily. Interbeing means no thing can exist, or be, without every other thing. I can’t be without you and you can’t be without me. Likewise, I can’t be without everything else in the universe and everything else in the universe can’t be without me. Interbeing is the interconnection of everybody and everything in the universe throughout all space and time.

Monk Hahn also teaches breathing and mindfulness. Through our breath and the awareness of our breath, we can center ourselves in the moment to become more present, mindful, and aware of ourselves and the world around us.

Monk Hahn’s teachings are accessible to everyone and aim to make the lives of every being and thing on the planet more loving and peaceful.

Whenever, I want to give the gift of Monk Hahn’s wisdom, I usually turn to the Parallax Press series How to Blank Thich Nhat Hanh. These books are short, well illustrated, and well made. But the rascal in me gets a laugh out of some of the titles.

You see, on their front covers, they don’t separate the How to Blank from Monk Hahn’s name. So, they have titles that read How to Fight Thich Nhat Hanh and How to Eat Thich Nhat Hanh. Neither of which sounds very mindful.

0910. Winner of the Hairiest Ass Crack Contest

“So, you’ve won the Hairiest Ass Crack Contest five years in a row now?”

“I have.”

“And how did you find out about the Hairiest Ass Crack Contest?”

“Like everything these days, I found it on the internet.”

“But what made you look into the Hairiest Ass Crack Contest in the first place?”

“Well, I’m a pretty self-aware guy. And I knew that my ass crack was very hairy. Porn, as you know, is everywhere. So, it was easy to compare my crack to everyone else’s.”

“And you found yours was excessively hairy?”

“So hairy it was scary!”

“And that’s when you looked into the Hairiest Ass Crack Contest?”

“No. I was single at the time and thought maybe it was because of my hair down there. I thought about getting it shaved or waxed or lasered, but I was too embarrassed to even go into those places. I mean, who would want to look at it? I hated my hair and hated myself. I became depressed and didn’t know what to do. So, I just stayed home and surfed the web alone, and that’s —” “When you came across the Hairiest Ass Crack Contest?”

“No. That’s when I came across a line in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass that said: “Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean; Not an inch, nor a particle of an inch, is vile.” With those word, I learned to love myself and my body.”

“And that’s when you found the Hairiest Ass Crack Contest?”

“Found it and won!”

0911. An Ordinary Day

Doug rolled the carriage back after the first pass. I loosened and raised the clamps from the oak log. Together with our cant hooks, we rolled it toward us onto its flat, cut face and slid it back against the braces. I dropped the clamps down, secured them, and stepped away from the carriage.

Doug cranked heavily on a lever and the log inched forward. He measured and adjusted until satisfied. Then he pulled another lever to engage the six-foot saw blade and the enormous Cummins diesel engine roared to life inside the mill.

As the log moved forward on the carriage, Latch came running down from the woodshop waving his hands.

I signaled for Doug to stop. Doug released the lever and pulled his ear protection back over one ear. I did the same.

“A plane just flew into one of the Towers!” Latch exclaimed.

We followed him back to the woodshop.

Joe and Jimmy were there, necks craned towards the t.v. above their heads, watching black smoke billowing out of the North Tower.

Latch and Joe began commenting on what we were seeing and hearing, adding their narrative to the newscaster’s. They speculated about the type of plane it was and why it happened. They thought it was a Cessna and an accident. They thought that until we watched a 747 crash into the South Tower.

We didn’t know it then, but the looping nightmare vision of the Towers collapsing allowed our government to strip away our freedoms and send us into wars that we’re still fighting today.

0912. Original Response

I’ve been thinking about the power of storytelling ever since writing story 0889. Content With Media. It reminded me of Robert Frost’s poem The Most of It, which, in my humble opinion, is about the medium that interfaces between the human world and the natural world, and shows the inability of the protagonist to provide meaning to their experience through the use of their imagination.

In the poem, a man weighed down by his solitude, stands alone by a lake and shouts across it, hoping the universe will respond to him with “counter-love, original response.” Instead, he hears his voice returned to him in the “copy speech” of his “mocking echo.” One day, the universe, or the It of the poem’s title, responds in the form of a crash and splash from a distant shore too far for his eyes to see. The man waits, “but instead of proving human when it neared,” was instead “a great buck” swimming across the lake. It comes ashore, water pouring off it “like a waterfall,” then it forces “the underbrush — and that [is] all.”

The buck is without meaning or significance to the man because he lacks the power of imagination to give it meaning. As an atheist or agnostic, he doesn’t see it as a natural sign from the universe that inspires awe. As a Christian or pagan, he doesn’t see it as the symbolic hart of Christ or Diana. The man’s experience is meaningless because he doesn’t invest it with meaning. He doesn’t even try to make the most of it.

0913. Beware the Aphantasiacs

Beware the Aphantasiacs. They lack humor, vision, and imagination.

Beware the Aphantasiacs. They walk flatfootedly upon the plane of reality instead of flying it. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They become enraged whenever they learn you can fly. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They will desperately try to wrestle the controls from your hands. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They have no intention of co-piloting the plane. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They will nosedive it with pride into a mountainside.

Beware the Aphantasiacs. They believe they are saving you from yourself.

Beware the Aphantasiacs. They humorlessly demand that the real remain real no matter what the cost. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They will make sure you suffer while denying your suffering. Beware the Aphantasiacs.

They are incapable of plans, dreams, or visions. Beware the Aphantasiacs.

They fly balloons of lead. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They unquestioningly believe that they are the only people fit to lead. Beware the Aphantasiacs.

They only build worlds of pain and death. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They have jaws that bite and claws that catch. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They are the military and the police. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They demand everyone lives as they live. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They eagerly punish all those who fail to conform. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They have onetrack minds and wear uniforms. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They build jails and call them schools. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They are the judges, jailers, and torturers of all who are free. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They are as dull as dull can be. Beware the Aphantasiacs. They’re coming for you and me. Beware the Aphantasiacs.

0914. The Horseless Headsman

The headsman jogged painfully down the road, sweat blinding him under his hood. His large, hairless, flabby frame looked like a greased pig rolled in the dust of the road. His leather breeches chafed the inside of his massive thighs and the devil’s fire sprang up through his feet like he was running on coals.

His heavy, long-handled, double-headed ax dropped closer to the earth with each ponderous step. He was angry, tired, and out of breath.

He knew he would be publicly remonstrated by the magistrate for his tardiness today. He knew he could lose his title, privileges, and position.

He knew he had fucked up.

He imagined some faceless guard awkwardly parting the prisoner’s head from their shoulders with their halberd and cursed himself, his luck, and his horse.

He could see her where she lay dead and headless on the side of the road miles behind him. She had broken her leg as they raced to the execution in the town square.

He had pushed her too hard. It wasn’t her fault that he had drank and wenched all night at the inn. But when the horse went down and all twenty stones of his bulk were pitched from her saddle onto the road, he erupted in rage, freed his ax, and with one stroke, lopped off her head.

It was a clean cut. He was proud of it. It was a swift and merciful decapitation. He only hoped the same swift mercy would be shown to him now that his head was on the chopping block.

0915. Let’s Start Listing Words Starting With the Letters U & V uvula, uterus, utilitarian, utility, urticate, urology, urine, urethra, unction, unctuous, unjust, undead, under, undefined, unacceptable, underrated, underwear, underwire, undine, unclean, understudy, understory, uncle, umami, unsee, underhanded, unhand, unhinged, unfurl, undone, underway, unveil, up, upward, urge, urgent, us, usual, unusual, usury, usurper, usurpation, unite, united, untied, untethered, union, unitary, universe, university, urchin, use, user, ugly, ululate, ultimate, ultima, ulna, unit, unity, unzip, unsavory, unsullied, unrepentant, unhappy, unmoor, unmake, unhurried, unfriendly, unfair, until, untamed, uxorious, ungrateful, unfazed, undermine, underwrite, underfund, underpass, undercut, underclothes, udder, utter, utmost, unwashed, unwed, undefiled, untoward, untouched, untold, unobservant, unqualified, unbearable, unbelievable, unduly, ultramarine, ultraviolet, ultraviolent, ultramontane, urn, urban, unmatched, unmanaged, unmanageable, unmarried, usher, unschooled, unskilled, unrefined, unreal, unreliable, unreserved, unwell, unwelcome, unworried, utensil, unleavened, unverified, undervalued, undercarriage, unseat, unconscious, unclear, unborn, upend, upper, ukulele, underplay, undersell, understanding vertigo, vitiligo, vitamins, vital, vitality, vitriol, volcanic, volatile, vulva, value, valuable, variable, variant, varsity, varmint, vermin, vermiculated, vermiform, virtual, victual, visual, visible, vision, visionary, visor, vizier, violet, violence, viol, viola, violin, vituperate, vittles, viand, vacuous, vacuum, vacuole, vacant, vandal, van, vanguard, ventriloquism, ventral, vent, ventilator, venal, vein, varicose, venule, vole, vemeronasal, venom, vegetable, vegetarian, vegan, vegetate, view, vulpine, vulture, votive, vote, voracious, vortex, verbose, verb, verse, verge, vengeful, vengeance, venerate, venerable, vendor, vocal, vocalize, vex, vest, vestige, vestibule, vast, vista, visit, visitor, village, villain, vilify, villi, valor, valve, valium, vault, verve, vivacious, vivisection, viridian, virus, virile, virtue, virtuous, veracity, veteran, veterinarian, veto, vet, veldt, volley, volt, voluble, volume, voluminous, vagina, vagary, vague, vogue, vagus, vagrant, vagabond, viable, viaduct, via, visa, vice, vase, vibe, vibrant, vibraphone, vibrator, vine, vintage, vintner, verdant

0916. But Not the Baron

Looking back at story 0912. Original Response and the lackluster lachrymose lake-dweller of Frost’s poem, I ask you, dear reader, how would Baron Munchausen handle himself in this situation? Would he let the buck’s appearance on the shore simply slip by with a sigh? Or would he use it as an opportunity to spin a tale worthy of the original response he sought?

If you answered the latter, then you truly know the Baron, and something of him resides in you. So, let’s conjure up, you and I, three stories of what the Baron might do given the appearance of the buck on the shore.

I’ll write the first two, you write the third.

Story 1: The Baron, insulted by the Universe’s response, draws his cutlass and spurs Bucephalus’s sides as he charges into mortal combat with the giant buck. In a balletic dance on the rocky beach, the Baron plies his sword against the great beast’s antlers, until he finds his opening and deftly stabs the humungous hart in its humungous heart, killing it instantly. Dismounting, he wipes his sword clean on its fur and makes an obscene gesture towards the Universe.

Story 2: The Baron, seeing the giant buck as the messenger of the Universe, spurs Bucephalus’s sides. When he nears the great beast, he leaps from his saddle onto its back. Grabbing hold of its antlers, he spurs its sides, and makes the buck fly him to heaven where the Universe resides. There, he demands an audience with the Universe and receives his original response.

Story 3:

0917. The Unmunchausens

It will often be said by the cadres of bores, snores, and squares of this world that Baron Munchausen is a liar. Even in his native Germany, the good Baron is called Lügenbaron, or Lying Baron, because of the tales he tells.

We also see this bias in the definition of Munchausen syndrome and Munchausen syndrome by proxy, where a person, parent, or guardian fakes a physical disease or mental illness that they or their child or charge are “suffering” from.

These people mustn’t be believed, both the cadres of bores, snores, and squares and those with Munchausen syndrome and Munchausen syndrome by proxy: The former, because they’re insufferable, and the latter, because they suffer.

Let’s focus on the former uninformed informers whose inflexible opinions about imagination, storytelling, and stories prove with every bland utterance of their blind ignorance that their brains are made of baked mud and bits of sticks.

These drips, drapes, and drones live in a gray “reality” of “hard facts,” where everything around them is “substantial” and “real.” They’re so insecure that they believe beyond all doubt that they know and have all the answers.

Even if they reach the stage of Frost’s wandering wondering woodwalker in The Road Not Taken, they’ll still see both roads as “really about the same,” and will convince themselves that they took the “one less traveled by.”

Though their choice will have made no difference because they continually choose the same safe path over and over in their minds until they’ve worn it into a rotten, rutted, and muddy track.

0918. The Münchhausen Trilemma

The Münchhausen trilemma frames its argument, that all truths are ultimately unknowable, like this: 1) A proposition is only proven by the proposition itself. 2) To support that proposition would require another proposition and so on to infinity. 3) Every position within a proposition rests on precepts that are asserted without proof.

So, what do we really know? What are the facts? What is reality?

The answer is: Anything we want it to be.

Our minds can go anywhere at anytime and do anything. We may be limited by physics and maths and we may be limited by our physical bodies and physical circumstances, but the only limitation of our minds is our imagination.

Don’t get me wrong, facts and consensus reality are necessary, but they’re only applicable in certain places and times and are subject to change. Even if we inhabit those places and times 99.9% of the spacetime and the changes are too slow to be seen, we still have to learn to be flexible about them.

So, how do we rescue ourselves from the morass of our unimaginative minds? By lifting ourselves up by our hair, of course!

Look up münchhausen in a German dictionary, it means ‘yarn spinner.’ Again we see the bullshit bias of ‘bullshitter.’ But breakdown münchhausen into münch and hausen and the first definition means ‘someone who lives in Münich,’ and the second definition means ‘someone who wreaks havoc in Münich.’

You see, the Baron lives in Münich, but when Münich gets to be too much, he knows he can tear it down.

0919. How to Become a Master of Life

To become a Master of Life, you must master three powers: The Power of Imagination, the Power of Laughter, and the Power of Love.

We’ve already discussed the Power of Imagination at length in the previous stories. So, let’s turn our attention to the Power of Laughter: If we bring back the insufferable cadres of bores, snores, and squares, and the drips, drapes, and drones, we’ll notice that they not only lack the Power of Imagination, they also lack the Power of Laughter, because to lack the former is to lack the latter. To participate in humor, to fill the world with laughter, you need a flexible mind and imagination. With imagination, one laughs with others in a community of laughter. Lacking imagination, the insufferable cadres of bores, snores, and squares, and the drips, drapes, and drones know only how to laugh at others from their sad separate islands of self.

You see, when the insufferable cadres of bores, snores, and squares, and the drips, drapes, and drones laugh at others, they do so to buttress themselves and their singular realities and their laws and their superiorities.

Their laughter is without joy; it is sad, sardonic, and solitary. They take themselves so seriously that they cannever laugh at their superiority, their laws, their reality, or themselves.

When we possess the Power of Imagination, we also possess the Power of Laughter. And with these two Powers, we can learn the Power of Love, because when we laugh, we crack ourselves up to reveal the true, unified reality within all of us.

0920. The Punch in the Balls Is Called a Revolution This is an allegory. The “adults in the room” are our wealthy politicians and the wealthy elites they serve. The “children in the room” are the rest of us. Now, in this room, there’s a cookie jar where all the money for everything is kept. The “adults” keep this cookie jar on top of the fridge where only they can reach it. They take freely from the jar and pass around cookies to each other, eating them greedily over our heads. Even though we make the cookies that go into the jar, they only give us the crumbs that fall from their mouths to support ourselves. And since we’re not stupid “children,” and since we know we make the cookies, we ask the “adults” to give us our fair share of cookies. But they never do. Instead, they make us beg and dance as they hold the cookies out of reach over our heads.

The real sinister ones raise them higher and higher as they tell us how fat and lazy we are for not being able to grab them ourselves. Some of the “children” will believe this and give up. But “children” have an acute sense of fairness, and when they feel that the “adults” are being unfair, they’ll get angry. The “adults” will talk down to them for getting angry, until the “children” punch them in the balls. When the “adults” fall to their knees, the “children” will take the cookie from their hands and dramatically eat them in the “adults’” face while doing a fuck-you-dance of victory.

0921.The Dignity of “Poverty”

Whenever I talk with family in my parents’ generation about their lives growing up, they always tell me they grew up “poor.” My parents' generation, the Baby Boomers born after World War II, never knew they were “poor” until they entered the workforce and started families of their own. It took a change in their material circumstances and relentless advertising to make them aware of their childhood “poverty.”

I never asked them what they meant by “poverty.” “Poverty” is a relative term. What’s “poor” to some might be rich to another. But I think what they meant was that they were working poor. Backed by F.D.R.’s Keynesian economic policies, they had food and family, clothes and community. They never had a lot, but they always had enough. Their “poverty” had dignity.

The world, though, was rapidly changing around them. They grew up in an America that had become the new world power alongside Russia. As national wealth expanded, so did personal wealth. This upward mobility allowed my parents' generation to rise into a robust middle class.

However, once there, politicians began dismantling all of F.D.R.’s policies with the zeal of corporate raiders.

Today, my generation, Generation X, is witnessing rapid downward mobility. As the wealth gap widens, the middle class erodes into the working poor. And as the nouveau riche topple into the nouveau pauvre, we’re not only seeing a fatal financial collapse, we’re seeing a fatal psychosocial collapse as suicidal depression, alcohol and drug addiction spike. Lacking F.D.R.’s Keynesian economic policies, there can be no dignity in our poverty.

0922. Learning to Do With Less

All of us in the so-called West need to learn to do with less. We need to learn to do with less because the planet can no longer sustain our current levels of consumption. We’re literally running out of planet. This necessary collapse in consumption needs to be made permanent.

Fortunately, this is already happening. As the middle class is eroded away to drive wealth upwards into the hands of a few billionaires and the ultra-wealthy, there is less surplus money for the majority of Americans to spend. Less money means less consumption. Less consumption means fewer things that need to be made. Fewer things that need to be made means fewer jobs. Fewer jobs means less money. Less money means less spending. This drop in consumption not only impacts individuals, families, and communities, it impacts the tax revenues of towns, states, and the federal government itself.

Unfortunately, all of this is happening under a federal government completely captured by corporate greed. Because the economic system of our current government is based on the capitalist consumption model, we need to elect a government, or create a new one, that will help us transform our current system into one based on a socialist non-consumption model.

The federal government can do this right now by taxing corporations and the rich and redistributing their wealth. If we had a fair, functioning tax system, we could stop the vicious austerity destroying our families and communities and transform our country’s economic system into something that works for everyone while reducing our gross levels of consumption.

0923. The Foundation Foundation

The Foundation Foundation is a foundation founded to stop the United States from financially foundering by forcing the federal government to fund a foundation under all of our feet.

The Foundation Foundation is fed up with the federal government focusing resources on the wealthy few who need nothing while ignoring the needs of the many.

The Foundation Foundation works against austerity measures imposed by the federal government and demands that the government provide free housing; furniture; utilities; internet; waste management; clothing; water; food; Medicare and Medicaid; universal basic income; banking; pre-kindergarten through post-doctoral education; public car, rail, and air transportation; public libraries, museums, theatres, commons, parks, and roads; while supporting a jobs program; and funding the arts and sciences, space exploration, fire departments and postal service facilities for all citizens and non-citizens in the United States and its territories.

The Foundation Foundation knows that only when the government works for the needs of the many instead of the needs of the few, it will dramatically improve the quality of life of every citizen and non-citizen in the United States and its territories.

The Foundation Foundation also knows that by improving the quality of life of every citizen and non-citizen in America, we will be improving the quality of life of everyone on the planet.

The Foundation Foundation believes that only by working together will we be able to end wars, homelessness, hunger, and poverty, and unite against the worst effects of climate collapse.

The Foundation Foundation knows that the survival of humanity, and every creature on Earth, depends on it.

0924. Scene 24

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is, for me, the funniest movie ever made.

I don’t often watch movies more than once, but I’ve seen this comic classic a dozen times or more.

When I was watching it again yesterday, I noticed how the entire plot turns on Scene 24, the exact midpoint of the movie. Here, the narrator tells us that “Arthur discovers a vital clue” and we find Arthur and Bedevere sitting across a fire from a creepy Old Man in a cramped ruin in mid-conversation.

Arthur: And this enchanter of whom you speak, he has seen the Grail?

Old Man: [laughing madly] Arthur: Where does he live? Old Man, where does he live?

Old Man: He knows of a cave, a cave, which no man has entered.

Arthur: And the Grail, the Grail is there?

Old Man: Very much danger, for beyond the cave lies the Gorge of Eternal Peril, which no man has ever crossed.

Arthur: But the Grail? Where is the Grail?

Old Man: Seek you the Bridge of Death.

Arthur: The Bridge of Death, which leads to the Grail?

Old Man: [laughing madly, disappears] As the camera zooms out, Arthur and Bedevere are no longer in the cramped ruin, but a forest. This magical translocation makes us think that the Old Man was, in fact, leading Arthur to the Grail. But a careful re-reading of the exchange above reveals that the Old Man never acknowledges the Grail once and was actually leading Arthur to the Bridge of Death where he works as a gatekeeper.

0925. Let’s Start Listing Words Starting With the Letters W, X, Y & Z worm, wyrm, wig, wigwam, wisteria, will, willpower, wilt, winter, witch, which, wench, watch, watcher, wait, weight, wail, whale, wane, wear, ware, wade, waders, wake, wave, weave, weep, week, wean, weed, west, wheat, who, what, when, where, why, weapon, weird, wyrd, wired, wire, work, world, whirled, whirligig, whirlpool, whine, wine, wheel, weak, weakfish, weakling, weld, wield, whelk, whelm, white, wight, wit, whist, wince, wind, wink, wanker, wonk, woke, wold, wart, ward, warden, war, warrior, warfare, warzone, warlock, warrant, warning, weir, warehouse, werewolf, worth, worthless, wort, warbler, water, waiter, wager, wage, wineglass, winery, win, winnow, wheelbarrow, wheel, weal, weary, with, without, within, withal, wither, withdraw, withhold, was, wasn’t, were, wassail, whistle, weasel, wheeze, wonder, wander, woods, wood, would, wove, wrote, write, writ, wrist, wrinkle, wrought, womb, woo, wool, woof, woozy, wild, while, wile, worry, worrisome, wipe, whip, whippersnapper, wing, wainwright, wheelwright, weevil, wield, winner, winsome, wan, want, wax, way, waylaid, wayfarer, wharf, warm, warmhearted, wallaby, wall, wallflower, walk, waltz, wasabi, wraith, wrath, wrench, wreath, wreak, wry, wriggle, wiggle, widget, woe, wastrel, whisk, while, wide, why’d, whoop, whoopee, whiz, wizard, wizened, wise, wisdom, wish, wash, washer, waste, waist, waistline, waiver, waif, wafer, waffle, web, website, worldwide, went, west, welt, well, wedding, wendigo, wyvern xylophone, xenophobia, x-ray, xanthic, xylem yellow, yarrow, yesterday, yesteryear, yeast, yank, yolk, yoke, yore, year, yearn, yucca, youth, young, yonder, you, you’ll, you’re, yew, yaw, yam, yummy, yogurt, yak, yuck, yes, yell, yikes, yuppie, yo-yo zebra, zenith, zeal, zip, zap, zit, zither, zilch, zinc, zing, zest, zillionaire, zirconium, zoo, zoonotic, zoology, zoetrope, zoom, zone, zero, zephyr, zeppelin, zed, zygote, zigzag

0926. Pubbup.com

As I get near the end of this book and begin to think about where and how to publish it, I can’t seem to find what I’m looking for among the many online publishing platforms. Since what I’m looking for doesn’t seem to exist, I’ve come up with an idea for a company called Pubbup.

Pubbup is a worker co-operative that hosts authors and publishers online allowing them to 1) display their books, or a portion of their books, for online public reading on all devices, 2) sell electronic and hardcopies of their books and audiobooks directly to their readers in a streamlined manner, i.e. easy payment, tax, shipping, and return processing, 3) create a membership/subscription program that allows member/subscribers to pay a yearly or monthly fee for access to exclusive reading material, 4) raise money to physically publish their books, 5) build a community of dedicated readers that authors and publishers can be supported by, 6) communicate with their community of member/subscribers through email and/or all major social media channels.

Pubbup could also offer formatting, editing, and marketing help for a fee. And could also expand into book printing or print-on-demand services, offering inexpensive, local, environmentally conscious, and worker co-operative printing options. Pubbup could also store and ship out the author or publisher’s books for a fee.

Pubbup would be a mixture of WordPress, Issuu, Patreon, and Kickstarter all in one and would be something like a Bandcamp or MySpace for authors.

I find it strange that this doesn’t already exist considering how many people are self-publishing these days.

0927. Pianissimo

After showing an interest in playing the piano, my mother found a local teacher for me. At our first meeting, I told the teacher I only wanted to learn Moonlight Sonata. She told me her method was to teach the basics first. After a year of learning the basics and finding myself no closer to learning Moonlight Sonata, I gave up.

Though I stopped practicing, our upright piano stayed in our house.

As I got older and my musical interests expanded, I learned that someone without much skill, like myself, could still make music, and that making music, for better or worse, was something of a basic human right. Ditching my piano teacher’s method, I sat at the piano and made up really short songs. I felt my way through them by touching the keys and making a sound that I’d join to other sounds in a pattern and rhythm until I had a short song that I’d record on my portable tape recorder. Making and recording these songs brought me great joy. I called them pianissimos and they were a forerunner to these stories.

When I was packing to move, I found my recorder and Pianissimo tape and gave them a listen. Thinking it wise to record the songs digitally in case anything happened to the physical tape during the move, I rewound it, pressed play, and it jammed. When I tried to open the lid, it cracked and destroyed the tape inside, and I had to throw out the recorder and tape. Now, my pianissimos are gone forever.

0928. Even Their Ghosts Are Gone

Losing my Pianissimo tape was tough, but in the scramble of the move, I couldn’t give myself time to mourn its loss. I was shredding so much art and writing from my early life that it was just another item added to the disappearing pile of my past.

It was a good purge, though. Sometimes you lose good things in purges.

Through purging, I learned that purges, once started, aren’t really under your control. Like wildfires, they always burn more than anticipated, and you inevitably end up sacrificing something you care about and want back.

But that’s how it goes with purges, and that’s how it goes with life. When you lose something or someone precious, it always gets you thinking about everything and everyone you’ve lost in your life and want back. It’s heavy stuff. But when you think about all the loss experienced by everyone everywhere around the world and across the ages, you realize there’s nothing to hold on to because everything and everyone becomes lost and forgotten.

My Pianissimo tape was one of those things, just as this book will be one of those things, and me, my family, and friends will be one of those things.

As I was emptying out my garage, I found some old framed photos from my mother’s side of the family. When she stopped by, I asked her who they were. She said she didn’t know. I asked her if she wanted them.

She said she didn’t.

When I was throwing them out, I knew even their ghosts were gone.

0929. What’s Left Behind

It’s remarkable how the majority of us will leave nothing behind. Some people might argue that they’re leaving behind their genetics in the form of their children. But there’s nothing special about this. All life is doing it, and with kids, we’re just links in a long helical chain of D.N.A. Besides, most of us won’t have the genetic impact of, say, a Genghis Khan, though I have some friends who have tried.

I can hear the rebuttal. “Well, maybe it’s not about having kids, but how you raise them.” Raising kids right definitely has an impact on the world. Raising kids to be loving, caring, and kind to themselves and everyone and everything on the planet is important. But, as more love is put into the world, and it grows stronger with each new generation, widening, deepening, and spreading, until all of our descendants only ever know love, we’ll still be part of the chain of love passing forward.

Certainly, we’ll leave a part of ourselves behind in our genetics and love. But our individual selves, our whole selves, will be diluted and lost. And even though we know this, we still feel the need to maintain the integrity of ourselves for as long as possible, to keep something of ourselves alive in the minds of the living for as long as possible. We do this knowing that most celebrity lasts, at most, a generation or three. We do this knowing that our species, and the Earth and the Sun that supports us, and the Universe itself, will end.

0930. Animal Magnetism

"I took Lucky for a walk in the park that day. He’s a good walker and doesn’t usually pull. So, when we walk around the park, I usually mindlessly scroll through my texts, emails, and social media feeds.

"That day was no different from any other day. We were out walking and I was checking my phone, when suddenly he jerked forward and almost pulled me to the ground. I didn’t have time to stop him because I was desperately trying to keep my feet under me. He was running and howling like mad. I tried yelling for him to stop, but he was running so fast, I could hardly catch my breath.

"When his legs finally gave out and he collapsed, I fell flat on my face.

But we didn’t stop moving. We were both being dragged forward through the grass as if pulled by some invisible and irresistible force.

"Luckily, we were stopped by a chain-link fence.

"As our bodies were crushed into each other against the fence, I was able to see that other people, pets, and animals were being dragged through the park too. I saw squirrels torn from trees and birds sucked out of the sky into this squirming mass of living, dying, and dead human and animal bodies. I watched in horror as it grew in size and volume, until I mercifully blacked out.

"Lucky and I were lucky to survive that day. But the sight and noise coming from the evil scientific genius Dr. Naughty’s animal magnet still haunts us in our sleep."

0931. Xtlxtli, the Arthropod Aliens

The arthropod aliens known as the Xtlxtli found Earth during a reconnaissance mission a billion years ago. Knowing the planet would one day become habitable, the Hive created a portal that would trigger and open when the planet was ready for colonization.

When the Cambrian Period arrived some 550 million years ago, the portal signaled Earth’s readiness by releasing pheromones into the webway.

The Earth was covered by one immense ocean save for the barren waste of Gondwanaland. Beneath the ocean’s surface, microbial mats carpeted the ocean floor, dense with nutrients and rich with life. Following the chemical trail, the Xtlxtli opened the portal into the ocean and dove into the waiting seas of a fertile world.

The Xtlxtli brought with them their primitive arthropod ancestors from their other worlds and introduced them into their new marine environment. Their ancestors fed off the microbial mats and off each other in a riotous feast. The Xtlxtli patiently watched them multiply and spread across the ocean floor, conquering or being conquered by their environment and each other. As many perished, many more rapidly evolved into new species, adapting new strategies for survival in what came to be known as the Cambrian Explosion.

But the Xtlxtli were not alone on the planet. Another alien race had found the planet many millennia before their Hive arrived and had claimed it for themselves. A truce was immediately struck between them and an evolutionary competition was set to play itself out. Both parties agreed not to interfere and settled back to watch the slow sport unfold.

0932. M’lylu, the Cephalopod Aliens

When Earth was ready, two M’lylus, K’tulu and R’lyhe, travelled there through a wormhole in their nautilus-shaped ship. Seeing the blue planet made their hearts sing and their tentacles danced together in amorous anticipation.

They directed their ship into Earth’s atmosphere, filled the siphuncles with air, and flew beneath the ocean. Touring their vast submarine realm, they coasted above the microbial mats and found the seafloor dense, rich, and ready.

Barely able to contain themselves, K’tulu and R’lyhe paused their tour, slipped out of the ship, and writhed in a coital embrace that shook the seabed and stirred up the bacterial blankets. Afterwards, when everything settled and was still, they held each other for a long while and shared their dreams about how they would mold the planet for their children. They spoke about their future family and their future life and the world that held endless potential and possibility.

Returning to their ship, they programmed it to find the deepest and most lightless point in the ocean and make its way there. As they descended into a vast trench, K’tulu and R’lyhe began to glow in neon bioluminescence. After the ship came to rest, they began its transformation into a home laboratory.

When they discovered that the Xtlxtli inhabited the planet with them, they found the Hive amenable to their offer of peaceful cohabitation and evolutionary competition. K’tulu and R’lyhe began releasing their molluscs, gastropods, and annelids into the benthic environment. A fierce competition took place, but before the game could play itself out, a fiercer invading army arrived.

0933. Dagonites, the Fish Aliens

The Dagonites swam through the sea between stars searching for a new spawning ground for their kind. Galactic currents carried their school to a vast ocean world. Their silver ships descended from the sky, crashed into the ocean, diving into the depths to attack the Xtlxtli and conquer their fertile territory.

Immediately, the Hive reacted and called for reinforcements.

Pheromones released from the portal called all available warrior drones in the webway. The response was rapid. Armed drones appeared and began battling the Dagonites back.

After the drones secured the area around the portal, the Hive contacted K’tulu and R’lyhe to come to their aid.

The two M’lylu rose up from their home laboratory in the trenches to help destroy this new threat to their family and cohabitants.

The attack by the M’lylu surprised the Dagonites and forced a retreat.

But the Dagonites rallied at the shores of Gondwanaland, developed a new strategy, and went on the offensive again.

Circling around the massive continent, a few ships held back out of sight. As the main school attacked, they led the Xtlxtli and the M’lylu away from the Xtlxtli portal. With the portal lightly defended, the small Dagonite fleet attacked it with their trident torpedoes and destroyed it.

The small fleet then targeted R’lyhe in a surprise attack, firing torpedoes into her unprotected back, mortally wounding her. With his wife dying, K’tulu carried her away from the battle, leaving the outnumbered Xtlxtli to be hunted down and destroyed by the Dagonites, who victoriously claimed the ocean for themselves and their spawn.

0934. Drakons, the Reptile Aliens

When the Drakons came to Earth in their pyramid ships, Gondwanaland had already begun separating and was covered with forests. The Drakons landed in the humid swamps and began planning their oceanic assault to rid their world of the Dagonites.

The Drakons, however, would not take the Dagonites by surprise.

With K’tulu stalking them silently from the ocean trenches, waiting to attack unwary schools in revenge for the death of his beloved R’lyhe, they had learned to remain vigilant. And knowing the Drakon threat from other lost worlds, the Dagonites evolved amphibious spies that would wait and watch from the shores and shallows, reporting back to them in Atlantis if anything suspicious was seen.

When the report came, they bolstered their defenses by calling all the attack sharks, armored fish, and ambush rays in the oceans to come to their aid. But the fish were quickly routed and destroyed by the enormous, fast, and fierce aquatic reptiles.

The Drakons then attacked the Dagonite fleet, quickly overwhelming them with their superior firepower and forcing them to retreat.

As the Dagonites raced back to the defenses of Atlantis, K’tulu got the full measure of his revenge by destroying the city and watching as the defenseless Dagonites were chased down and destroyed by the Drakon fleet. With the Dagonites dead, K’tulu returned to the trenches to sleep and dream.

The Drakons dominated the oceans, land, and sky for untold generations until an old foe emerged from space and attacked them with a meteor that brought their entire civilization to the brink of extinction.

0935. Yetu, the Mammal Aliens

The Yetu had finally found their old foe the Drakons. In fierce reprisal for the slaughter of their world, they launched a meteor from space to annihilate them.

The impact was spectacular, the Drakons scrambled to put their fleet into space, but the Yetu targeted each ship through the thick ash cloud covering the planet, sending down bursts of energy to destroy them utterly.

The Yetu were patient. They let the aftermath of the meteor do its work before descending onto the planet to clean up the last of the Drakon army. When they arrived, they destroyed the starving and dying warriors with their potent cryoweapons.

However, unbeknownst to the Yetu, some sly Drakons of the snake sect managed to secure themselves deep underground in geothermal caves.

There, they went into torpor and remained asleep until reinforcements could arrive.

The Yetu filtered the atmosphere, dropped the temperature, and promoted glaciation. When the Earth turned to snowy steppes and glittering peaks, the Yetu settled on the planet and made a new home.

They guided evolution on land and in the ocean, allowing all species to evolve, but taking special interest in the apes by grooming them to become future caretakers and stewards of the planet.

One ape in particular was raised above the others to serve them, but in the natural gap between ice ages, when the Yetu slumbered during aestivation, a sly serpent slithered into the garden and whispered words of power into their nascent minds, made them independent, and turned them against their masters.

This ape evolved into man.

0936. Crazy Cuckoo Bird

“Hey, man. What’s the word?”

“The word I’ve overheard is that everyone’s calling you a ‘crazy cuckoo bird.’”

“My word! You’re the third who’s conferred that I’m referred to as a ‘crazy cuckoo bird.’”

“So, you’ve already heard?”

“Yes, I’ve already heard that everyone’s calling me a ‘crazy cuckoo bird.’”

“Well, I hoped I had misheard, and I think it is absurd!”

“That everyone’s calling me a ‘crazy cuckoo bird?’”

“I think that they’ve erred and have slurred by calling someone like you a ‘crazy cuckoo bird.’”

“But their words are preferred.”

“Preferred and not demurred to be called by everyone a ‘crazy cuckoo bird?’”

“Yes, concurred. Those are the words that’re preferred by everyone calling me a ‘crazy cuckoo bird.’”

“It’s never occurred to me that those words would be preferred. I thought you’d be stirred and spurred to reword the smear words of ‘crazy cuckoo bird.’”

“No. I remain unstirred and unspurred to reword the smear words of ‘crazy cuckoo bird’ when those are words spoken by the herd. Listen, the braincurd of the herd is blurred by what they believe is the real word, the revealed word, of the real world. That’s why you should never listen to the herd. Remember, love’s a byword for ‘crazy cuckoo bird.’ It’s not awkward when love moves us upward and downward, inward and outward. Love should never move us backward. It should always move us forward.”

“I shouldn’t’ve been deterred when I heard those words spoken by the herd. But I’m succored by the words you’ve transferred to my curd.”

0937. Cloud Cuckoo Land

Listen, we should all welcome being called “crazy cuckoo birds” who want to live in Cloud Cuckoo Land by the brainwashed herds mouthing the empty platitudes of corporations and governments telling us that there can only be scarcity, austerity, and poverty for us, but plenty, gain, and wealth for them.

There’s nothing wrong with being a crazy cuckoo bird who wants the best for themselves and everyone on the planet. There’s nothing wrong with demanding that we put people and planet over profits. There’s nothing wrong with imagining the locus amoenus of Acadia, Arcadia, Atlantis, Big Rock Candy Mountain, Cloud Cuckoo Land, Cockaigne, Datong, Eden, Eldorado, Elysium, Ketumati, Neverland, Paradise, Peach Blossom Spring, Schlaraffenland, Shangri-La, because it’s only by holding onto the utopian dream that we escape the sociopathic and omnicidal savagery of our uncivilized nations across our uncivilization.

You see, everyone’s starting to wise up to the lies of the corporations who’ve captured our government. So, when we hear the government tell us it’s financially broke and fiscally powerless to help its own people, it just doesn’t square with the facts that we know. Especially when they’ve just handed corporations trillions of dollars while millions of our citizens remain jobless, penniless, foodless, and homeless.

Ask yourself: Who actually lives in Cloud Cuckoo Land? Who are the actual crazy cuckoo birds? Who are the insane sociopaths sitting inside Paradise, holding the keys to the Kingdom, and telling us we can’t enter because we’re not worthy, even though it’s our money, our government, our country, and our planet?

Who’s crazy, really?

0938. The Joy of Cuckooing

The Joy of Cuckooing is the joy of imagining Cloud Cuckoo Land on Earth. The Joy of Cuckooing is the joy of belief in the possibility of Cloud Cuckoo Land. The Joy of Cuckooing is the joy of carrying Cloud Cuckoo Land in your heart wherever you go. The Joy of Cuckooing is the joy of spreading the word of Cloud Cuckoo Land to everyone wherever you go.

The Joy of Cuckooing is the joy of giving the gift of Cloud Cuckoo Land to others. The Joy of Cuckooing is the joy of working towards Cloud Cuckoo Land together. The Joy of Cuckooing is the joy of trying and failing to create Cloud Cuckoo Land. The Joy of Cuckooing is the joy of trying and retrying for Cloud Cuckoo Land again and again.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is the land of the cuckoos. The cuckoo is a clever bird that lays its egg in the nest of other birds. When the cuckoo chick hatches, it pushes the other chicks out of the nest until it’s the only chick left. The mother bird then raises the cuckoo chick as its own until it leaves the nest. If you’re the cuckoo bird, and the nest is someone else’s mind, and your egg is the idea of Cloud Cuckoo Land, and the other chicks in the nest are the old ideas of scarcity, austerity, and poverty, then we see that the cuckoo bird is a subversive bird of ideas. We just have to remember that the minions of the corporate-state are cuckoo birds too.

0939. The Hypocritical Oath

As COVID-19 infection rates soar again in America, I thought we should have a look at an abridged version of the Hippocratic Oath: I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: … I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures required, avoiding those twin traps of over- and under-treatment. … Most especially I must tread carefully in matters of life and death. … [T]his awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart … but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. … I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. … I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings. … If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and [be] remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

So, why would Dr. Anthony Fauci and Surgeon General Jerome Adams lie to the American public about the ineffectiveness of facemasks at the beginning of the pandemic? They lied because they believed the American public would buy up all the N95 masks, preventing hospital staff from getting access to them. This one lie has cost thousands of American lives.

0940. Rum & Cookies

I almost never drink rum. One time when I was out in Joshua Tree, I drank almost an entire bottle of Bacardi during a ritual spell. I passed out on the edge of the desert and threw up in my sleep. Luckily, my dream self was wise enough to tell my sleeping body how to position itself so as not to aspirate my vomit. I woke the next morning alive, but dazed and dehydrated and in need of a shower, water, electrolytes, and lots of sleep.

After that episode, I had no desire to drink rum again. However, since staying with my buddy, Matt, who went to vet school in the Caribbean, I’ve been enjoying rum and gingers over the past few months. Last Thursday night, we had a glass and listened to some tunes. Something about the night felt like a celebration. So, Matt broke open his 21-year old Appleton and poured generously. As we drank, we each ate a vegan black and white cookie. The rum’s sweetness deliciously amplified the cookie’s sweetness.

After another glass, the sleepy rum drunk descended like a body high. To press myself into full somnambulism, I brought out my pen and we both took a couple of hits.

After the last song ended, I said goodnight and stumbled up to bed.

As soon as I got changed and under the covers, I closed my eyes and sensed another drunk sense me. He was somewhere outside in a cobbled Old World city. I said hello, told him to get home safe, then fell asleep.

0941. A Science Fiction Horror Western Film

Above Area 51, pilots fly a captured alien spaceship. During the test flight, a strange vessel appears. The pilots take a potshot with an unknown weapon aboard the spaceship. They hit the vessel, causing it to plummet out of the sky and crash into the desert.

The general sends out a group to retrieve the vessel. When its brought into Hangar 18, the head scientist excitedly opens it, finding something he’s never seen before: a biomechanical fusion of brain and machine.

As the ship is dismantled, strange, poltergeist-like phenomenon starts to happen until an alien ghost manifests. The soldiers fire at it to no effect.

The ghost kills them along with all the scientists.

The general has everyone evacuate the hangar, but when he learns that the three pilots who flew the test mission were also killed, he orders the base evacuated. As the killings continue, a captured alien asks to see the general.

The alien explains that the spaceship was a fourth-dimensional probe cut off from its dimension by the weapon, and the angry ghost is the essence of the entity trapped in our three dimensions and looking for a way out.

The alien says she knows how to free it. After being released and searching the base, she finds the ghost has left. She rides out alone into the desert on a horse, following the ghost’s murderous trail.

She builds, lures, and traps the ghost in a crop circle-like pattern made from desert rocks. Then she performs the rite that opens a portal and guides the spirit home.

0942. The Agon of Schiele

Egon Schiele was an Austrian painter who died at the age of 28 from Spanish influenza. Though he died during a pandemic at a very young age, he left behind an idiosyncratic style and an enduring body of work.

If you’ve ever seen a portrait by Schiele, you immediately know it was painted by Schiele because everything screams Schiele from the position of his subject’s body and hands, to his line, brushstroke, and palette.

The combined elements of Schiele’s portraits create a paradoxical static dynamism, a tension of opposites between death and life, where something quite magical happens. The doll-like mannerisms of his subjects’ hands and bodies make them appear rigid and lifeless while also giving them movement and life. Because no one could possibly hold a pose like that for long, you’re left with the impression that his subjects were captured in the brief and awkward moment of a grotesque gesture somewhere beyond the artist’s canvas. This effect is amplified by the loose washiness of his brushstrokes, which imbues his work with a sketchy speediness, as if he were trying to capture this fugitive instance before it disappeared forever. This is further amplified by the bony voluptuousness of his models and the sickly yellows and morbid greens he mixes into their flesh tones.

In these portraits, you not only see the dynamism of life, but the dynamism of death, the cyclical agony of angular anatomy torturously rising in bodies struggling to free themselves from the earth to bloom briefly, flushing and blushing, before collapsing back into death and rebirth.

0943. The Three Stages of Awareness

The Romantic stage is the stage of youthful innocence where we all begin.

We know nothing about the world or ourselves, but in our Romantic optimism and confidence, we believe, without question, that we have it all figured out.

The Ironic stage is the stage of adulthood we grow into through experience. As young romantics, we’re continually learning about the world and ourselves. As we gain knowledge and insight, we become more ironic, learning the difficult lesson that things aren’t what they seemed from our naive Romantic perspective.

We’ll know we’ve fully entered the Ironic stage when we look back with a mixture of nostalgia for our lost innocence, optimism, and confidence and regret for our ignorance. Irony is holding two viewpoints in mind at the same time. Now, as fully-fledged ironists, we can see both the figure and the ground of reality and move between the two. To contextualize: the figure is ourselves and everyone else in the world, and the ground is our total environment and the social rules organizing it. Finding ourselves in this complex and fluid matrix, we may, out of fear, retreat back into romanticism, or we may harden and freeze at this stage. But for those of us who learn to master irony, a third stage awaits.

The Cosmic stage is the stage where innocence, cheerfulness, and serenity return. To reach it, we must rise above the tragic by following the comic elements to their cosmic heights where we look down on our interconnectivity with the humor, humility, and wisdom our lofty perspective provides.

0944. The Three Reactions to the Ironic Stage

When we’ve gained enough experience, we’ll have three reactions to the Ironic stage: regression, aggression, and progression.

Regression is the return to the Romantic stage to seek shelter from the world’s complexities. Regression wants simple answers to complex problems or wants to deny there are any problems at all. Regression is an active return to ignorance and the safety of groupthink. Regression requires the elimination of all critical thought and a transfer of responsibility to the comforting law and order provided by a cult father figure or a paternalistic god and his priests who tell you who you are, what you need to know, and how to act. Regression is adult infantilism.

Aggression has two levels. First-level aggression is the stance taken by those who have become calcified by their bitter Ironic stage experience.

It is the cynical belief that in this dog-eat-dog world only the strong survive. It is getting all that you can get while you can get it. It is attacking yourself and others if you fail to achieve it. It is believing that if you can’t beat the system and its players, you must join them. It is being complicit with and defending the system. Second-level aggression is being critical of, opposing, undermining, and/or attacking this system.

Progression is the movement out of the Ironic stage and its brutal system into the Cosmic stage. Progression isn’t regression because it rises above aggression to freedom instead of falling back beneath its control.

Progression follows the path of love to the mountaintop and the heavens above the fray.

0945. The Three Barriers to the Cosmic Stage

For those in the Ironic stage who have achieved second-level aggression, that is, aggression against the stalled Ironic stage and its oppressively brutal systems, three barriers will arise to prevent you from entering the Cosmic stage.

The first barrier is using second-level aggression against first-level aggression. Since the brutal manmade system of the Ironic stage is one of aggressive survival, the second-level ironists will become aggressively explicit about the failures of the system and attack it. They will do this until they are converted, marginalized, or destroyed by the system. The barrier to second-level ironists is remaining within the aggression that the Ironic stage facilitates and makes everyone complicit in.

The second barrier is using second-level aggression against the aggression and passive aggression of those who have regressed back into the Romantic stage. Some second-level ironists want to convert, marginalize, or destroy those who have already been broken by the aggressive and complex system the first-level ironists maintain. The barrier for secondlevel ironists is the destructively aggressive response against those who have retreated back into the safety of the Romantic stage.

The third barrier is using second-level aggression against other second-level ironists. We have to remember, that each second-level ironist is working to extract themselves from first-level aggression in their own way and on their own terms. To collectively free ourselves from aggression, we have to learn to love one another without ironic aggression.

By forgiving others and ourselves, by condemning actions and not people, by remaining supportive and flexible, we help everyone continue to evolve towards the Cosmic stage.

0946. Reality, Sometimes It Becomes Real Boring and Uninspiring Reality, sometimes it becomes real boring and uninspiring. I don’t know about you, but some days, I’m just about bored to death. On days like these, I’m so uninspired I couldn’t even take my own life if I wanted to. Instead, I just sit there in my self-aware solitude like I’m sitting in one of those kiddie pools, filled with piss-hot hosewater and my own filth, under the sun’s merciless gaze while wearing leaden floaties and concrete shoes with the scum of boredom as thick as sludge and as heavy as time around me.

These shitty similes are an attempt to describe the gravity of a shitty situation. But you know how it is, when you’re just existing and performing your latest patterns of bad habits like an automaton, hoping something about them will give your life meaning though you know they never will. And as you grow more bored and frustrated performing them, you force yourself to sleep, hoping tomorrow will be better than today. But tomorrow arrives with more of the same, and you have to force yourself to change something, anything, about your routine, even though you don’t want to, but know that you have to at least try. So you desperately perform some half-remembered older, better habit that doesn’t work either.

But somewhere in this mess, something new appears, and, for the briefest moment, you feel real joy, and you smile and think about how lucky you are.

Then, it’s gone. But that’s all right, because you’re a little less bored and a little more inspired.

0947. The Other Day I Thought About Killing Myself “The other day I thought about killing myself,” he said.

“Did you do it?” he asked.

“I did,” he said.

“And?” he asked.

“And it’s just as you’d imagine it,” he said.

“I don’t think I can,” he said.

“Imagine it?” he asked.

“Yeah, imagine it,” he said.

“Well, I just did it like this. See?” he said, showing him.

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“And that was pretty much it,” he said.

“But you’re here now,” he said.

“Yup. I’m here now,” he said.

“So, are you dead?” he asked.

“Don’t know. It’s hard to tell,” he said.

“Well, do you feel dead?” he asked.

“No. I feel very much alive,” he said.

“Then, maybe you’re alive,” he said.

“But what about my death?” he asked.

“Don’t know. Are you sure you died?” he asked.

“Pretty sure,” he said.

“This is something you should be sure about. I mean, if there’s anything to be sure about, it’s death, right?” he asked.

“Maybe I died and came back to life,” he said.

“Is that possible?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” he said.

“Maybe you should try it again and find out,” he said.

“But what if it doesn’t work again?” he said.

“You’ll never know unless you try,” he said.

“True,” he said.

“Will you have a go at it then?” he asked.

“I think I will,” he said.

“Not here, though,” he said.

“No. Not here. At home, like before,” he said.

“Okay, then. Well, good luck,” he said.

“Thanks,” he said.

“See you tomorrow, then?” he asked.

“We’ll see,” he said.

0948. L’esprit d’escalier

I repeated one of my wittiest puns to amuse the crowd. But then a new man arrived and replied using my pun as an antanaclasis. I was shocked and knew immediately that I had my work cut out for me.

I quickly eyed my rival as I went through the tropes and schemes in my head. He eyed me back, waiting for a response. I made my next move with a clever metonym. But he rapidly countered with a deft synecdoche.

Who was this man? I thought.

Flustered, I responded with a lame metalepsis. He then launched into hyperbole about his word skill.

I undercut him with a simple but powerful meiosis and followed it up with a paradiastole about my word skill to gain back the ground I had lost with my metalepsis. But he had the high ground and responded with a humorous analogy, showing everyone that he had already won.

But I refused to concede victory. I was the wit. So, I retaliated with a tasteless simile that showed I was flustered. This left me open to his calm and cleanly composed metaphor.

When he spoke it, it nearly destroyed me. It took everything in me to hold what little ground I had left. My reaction was ignoble, but given what had just happened, it was all I knew to do. I ejaculated a hypocatastasis with all the fury and vitriol within me and stormed out.

It wasn’t until I reached the bottom of the stair that the perfect riposte came, but alas, it was too late.

0949. Flatland

In Edwin A. Abbott’s classic 1884 novella Flatland, we’re introduced to Square, a two-dimensional square living in the two-dimensional world of Flatland.

On New Year’s Eve in 1999, Square has a dream where he visits the one-dimensional world of Lineland and speaks to their King. The King explains to Square that the lines of Lineland only see each other as points and that all marriage, mating, and communication are conducted through sound. When Square tries to explain the two-dimensions of Flatland to the King, he’s attacked and chased out.

After waking from his dream, Square is visited by Sphere, who attempts to explain to him the three dimensions of Spaceland by moving through the plane of Flatland. Sphere’s circles shrink in circumference until he disappears and reverses until he reappears. But, like the King of Lineland, Square can’t wrap his head around a third dimension. Sphere tries to explain that from his three-dimensional perspective, he can see inside everything in the second dimension, but those in the second dimension can’t see him because they don’t have an eye “inside.” Failing to explain himself with words, Sphere resorts to action and retrieves a tablet from within a locked cabinet. Still, Square remains at a loss. Sphere then lifts Square “upward, not northward” so he can see from his three-dimensional perspective. Square sees and is transformed. But when Square asks Sphere to let him see Sphere’s insides from the fourth dimension, Sphere abruptly returns Square to Flatland. Square then attempts to spread the “Gospel of Three Dimensions,” and is imprisoned for heresy.

0950. The Fourth Spacial Dimension

When Square asks Sphere to take him to the fourth dimension so he can see inside Sphere, his request seems incredibly perverse even though Sphere can see inside Square. When Sphere denies the request because “the very idea of [a fourth dimension] is utterly inconceivable,” Square makes his case by analogy: In one dimension, a moving point produces a line with two terminal points. In two dimensions, a moving line produces a square with four terminal points. In three dimensions, a moving square produces a cube with eight terminal points and six square faces. In four dimensions, a moving cube produces a “divine cube” with sixteen terminal points and eight “bounding cubes.”

Square presses on by asking Sphere if there had ever been reports of “Beings of a higher order than their own” appearing out of nowhere into the third dimension as Sphere had appeared to him in the second. Sphere said there had, but they’d been dismissed and explained away. Square tries to convince Sphere that these “visions” from “the perturbed angularity of the seer” were probably beings from “Thoughtland” that “more Spacious Space” beyond Spaceland where a Cube moves “in some altogether new direction … so as to pass through a new kind of Space … with sixteen terminal Extra-solid angles, and Eight solid Cubes for his Perimeter.”

Carried away by this, Square extends his analogy by claiming that beyond the fourth dimension there must be a fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth dimension. But before Square can get lost in an infinite regress, Sphere returns him to Flatland.

0951. The Other Fourth Dimension

Flatland is not only a brilliant satire about Abbott’s, Square’s, and, sadly still in many respects, our own time, it’s also a wonderful guide to understanding the complex ideas of space and dimensionality. But there’s another aspect of the book that is just as important but never discussed: the concept of time.

Note that the story takes place on New Year’s Eve of 1999. Meaning that the inhabitants of Flatland understand time. Since Abbott chose to tell Flatland from Square’s perspective, he had to anthropomorphize Square and all the dimensional entities. This anthropomorphization not only made all the dimensional entities sentient, it made them all exist in time.

This means two things for the story and for us. 1) Time is directly connected to consciousness, and 2) time is not, as many often think, the fourth dimension after the third spacial dimension, but rather a dimension independent of them.

To briefly expand on the first point, to the extent that all the dimensional entities, except the God Point of Pointland, understand themselves to be finite and bounded by the dimensions of their bodies, they also understand themselves to be finite and bounded by time. All are born, live, and die in time. This makes time a “second dimension” to the inhabitants of Lineland, a “third dimension” to the inhabitants of Flatland, and a “fourth dimension” to the inhabitants of Spaceland, and so on. This dimension, however, is temporal and not spatial, and from our third dimension should not be confused with the spatial fourth dimension that exists “inside” our own.

0952. Scientific Romances

Charles Howard Hinton, a mathematician, wrote about the fourth dimension in his book Scientific Romances. One essay, published the same year as Flatland, titled What is the Fourth Dimension? expands on the premise of a fourth dimension and speculates on the nature of a fourth dimensional entity: “A being existing in four dimensions must then be thought to be as completely bounded in all four directions as we are in three. All that we can say in regard to the possibility of such beings is, that we have no experience of motion in four directions. The powers of such beings and their experience would be ampler, but there would be no fundamental difference in the laws of force and motion.

“Such a being would be able to make but a part of himself visible to us, for a cube would be apprehended by a two-dimensional being as the square in which it stood. Thus a four-dimensional being would suddenly appear as a complete and finite body, and as suddenly disappear, leaving no trace of himself, in space, in the same way that anything lying on a flat surface, would, on being lifted, suddenly vanish out of the cognizance of beings, whose consciousness was confined to the plane. The object would not vanish by moving in any direction, but disappear instantly as a whole.

There would be no barrier, no confinement of our devising that would not be perfectly open to him. He would come and go at pleasure; he would be able to perform feats of the most surprising kind.”

0953. Inward, Not Upward

Hinton tells us that even though the fourth dimension is unknowable to us, thinking through the problem allows us to imagine “things of which we can form no image.”

Before Sphere appeared, Square “felt a Presence.” This feeling suggests something like extrasensory perception. But it also suggests something like empathy. I don’t know what it feels like to be another person, but I can be open to their experience without directly experiencing it myself. This analogy is, of course, limited, but it suggests that the fourth dimensional “sense” might be something, like E.S.P. and empathy, which we can develop with practice.

In Hinton’s analogies, we’re told that to move from dimension to dimension, an “entity” always moves at a right angle to itself. This makes sense until we get to the cube. In what direction can a cube move that’s at a right angle to itself?

Trapped in the third dimension, we can’t see or know this right angle direction because, as Sphere says to Square, we don’t have an eye on that side. We also don’t have a fourth dimensional Super-Sphere showing up to pull us into the fourth dimension so we can see the insides of our third dimension. But maybe we can feel the direction. If three dimensions are up/down, right/left, and forward/back, perhaps we can say that the fourth dimension is in/out.

Square learns the phrase, “Upward, not northward,” and repeats it like a mantra to understand the third dimension. Could we not also learn the phrase, “Inward, not upward,” and use it for greater insight?

0954. The Gospel of Four Dimensions

The Gospel of Four Dimensions says that there is a fourth dimension and it is real. The Gospel of Four Dimensions says that, though we can’t see or experience the fourth dimension, we can logically deduce it by analogy. The Gospel of Four Dimensions says that we can sense the fourth dimension with something like E.S.P. and feel it with something like empathy. The Gospel of Four Dimensions says that, because of these things, we can believe in the reality of the fourth dimension.

As we feel our way from the third dimension to the fourth, repeating the mantra, “Inward, not upward. Inward, not upward, Inward, not upward, Inward, not upward,” our search inevitably leads us to the inside eye we’ve been developing for millennia. This eye is called many names: our third eye, our inner eye, our mind’s eye. It is associated with, and may in fact be, the pineal gland. It is the eye of insight and intuition. It is the Ajna chakra from which all of a yogi’s siddhis, or powers, derive. These siddhis allow the yogi to heal the sick, communicate telepathically, slip out of their bodies and into others, move through physical barriers and escape from jails, be omnivident and omniscient.

Directing our inner eye inwards, we can “see” the cube move at a right angle to itself to form what Abbott calls an “Extra-Cube” and Hinton calls a “tesseract.” We can “see” the cube moving into its terminal cube position inside the terminal cube. We can “see” how both cubes remain the same size.

0955. Entering the Fourth Dimension and Beyond If you allow yourself to feel-see your way into the unknown direction of the fourth dimension with your inner eye, a feeling of vertigo will overcome you as you feel-see yourself standing on the edge of a great precipice. The feeling will be thrilling, nauseating, and frightening all at once.

There’s a seduction at the edge that pulls you both ways. There’s the desire to let go and jump into the unknown and a counter-desire to pull back and hold on desperately to the known. You may hesitate, but if you lean in and let go, you will feel yourself falling without movement, folding into yourself. As you’re broken open and your insides are exposed, you’ll be overwhelmed by nausea. When this passes, the fear will hit you as you feel your mind fragment into something like fractal shards that spiral in on themselves, turning and folding into something like a Calabi-Yau Manifold. The fear comes from losing your mind in an infinite regress of nth dimensional spaces. But the moment you let the fear pass through you, a sense of levity and buoyancy overcomes your body and mind. This stalls your fall-float through the air-sea of higher dimensions.

As you regain control and begin to explore these spaces, you discover that you and your dimension, and all dimensions before and after yours, are suspended within the air-sea medium of higher dimensions. There’s such an elegant beauty to these nested dimensions that you rise-float through the bliss filled ocean until you’re carried back into the confines of your three-dimensional body.

0956. What’s Next?

As this book winds down in my mind, my mind winds up asking: “What’s next with this book?” and “What’s the next book?”

The answer to the first question is pretty straightforward. I’ll start the editing process and book design and layout. I plan on a minimum of eight edits, which should take the better part of a year to complete, providing me with plenty of time to figure out the best way to make the book available, set up the Charybdis Press website, and complete all the other details necessary.

The answer to the second question is a bit more open and fluid.

During the edit and between edits, I’ve been spending time developing other projects I’ve had in the W.I.P. as well as developing new ones. I have two that are directly connected to A Thousand Stories, and are something of a prequel and sequel to it. I’ve already started writing the second and laying the groundwork for the first. I don’t know if I’ll continue with these, though. Once the book is off my mind, out of my hands, and into yours, I’m not sure I'll need or want to come back to it.

The project that has me most excited at the moment is a rules-light tabletop role-playing game with a dark medieval fairytale setting. I’m having a lot of fun figuring out the mechanics, characters, and rules. I also have some adventure modules lined up for it as well. And I’m working on comic and film scripts based on some of the stories you’ve read.

0957. From the Quills of Disinterested Archons

From the quills of disinterested Archons, one can banish Abraxas forever.

To do this, you must know that the seven legendary birds are the seven Archons who rule the sky. And you must know that the seven Archons of the Hebdomad are the seven emanations of Abraxas who have grown weary of being here on Earth and desire its destruction.

But if you learn where the seven legendary birds reside and are brave enough to steal a tail feather from each of them, you can bring forth their nemesis Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel, who will banish Abraxas with its light.

Search for and find the Firebird and steal from it a red tail feather.

Search for and find the Garuda and steal from it an orange tail feather.

Search for and find the Thunderbird and steal from it a yellow tail feather.

Search for and find the Roc and steal from it a green tail feather. Search for and find the Anzu and steal from it a blue tail feather. Search for and find the Anqa and steal from it a purple tail feather. Search for and find the Peng and steal from it a white tail feather.

When you’ve collected the seven tail feathers with the seven colors, climb to the highest summit and, fanning them out in a rainbow over your head, call out to the divine sun to summon Melek Taus. The Peacock Angel will then descend on a sunbeam and fill you with his light, and you will rise on resplendent wings ready to fight.

0958. Ditkoesque Diskoteque

“Write that down,” I ordered my sidekick, Asthenic Amanuensis, pointing to the sign on the door. “And remember to write down everything exactly as I say and do it. Got it?”

“Got it,” he said, nodding.

“The time is now 12:34 p.m. Let’s begin.”

A.A. scribbled hastily.

Later that night, I read in his notebook: Diskoteque Cosmotique or Cosmotiche?

“Which is it?” I ask angrily. “Cosmotique or Cosmotiche?”

“Both, I think,” he says. “They had two signs.”

“You’re fired,” I say, jump kicking him through a window. “A man’s responsible to write right. Telling the objective truth is the only way to right wrongs. If you write wrong, then you’re trying to sell me your subjective truth. And I ain’t buying it, pal. There’s only one reality and you better stick to it.”

Several stories down, A.A. held on to a flagpole for dear life, but he lacked strength and conviction and lost his grip.

He died on impact, but he was still alive when we entered what I’m now calling just the Diskoteque.

“Inside no one was dancing. Every eye turned to me as I entered.

They were a bunch of young, unwashed, long-haired hippies painting signs to complain about the government not giving them free handouts, as if freedom wasn’t enough. No doubt these lazy junkie crybabies were going to use the front of a “peaceful protest” to loot and riot. Someone had to stop these terrorists and that someone was me.”

After externalizing my interior monologue, I jump kicked the first hirsute girl square in the chest.

0959. Henotic Hologrammar

Henotic Hologrammar is the mystic understanding that all mass, volume, and depth in our universe is illusory, and that all of us, and everything within our universe, are nothing more than the etchings scratched upon a single two-dimensional surface plate by the Hand of God. Henotic Hologrammar is the mystic understanding that when these etchings are illuminated by His Divine Light as He reads with His Divine Eyes, the two-dimensional etchings project into a three-dimensional hologram that appears to possess mass, volume, and depth when perceived through the eyes of individual conscious observers like ourselves. Henotic Hologrammar is the mystic understanding that the world around us appears to have depth, because the fineness of His etchings provides our eyes with parallax and perspective to create the illusion of a threedimensional world. Henotic Hologrammar is the mystic understanding that the entire universe is brought back to life again whenever He reads over His holograph, illuminating it with the Divine Light from His Divine Eyes. Henotic Hologrammar is the mystic understanding that the holograph he reads is not the Holograph of Holographs, but rather a holograph among infinite holographs, a single page, or brane, bound inside an infinite book of infinite branes, each etched with the scratches of His Divine Hand as He writes His Great Work, which contains every possible permutation of the universe that ever could be conceived by His Divine Mind and written by His Divine Hand in a hypergraphic style that some of His more terse contemporaries have called graphomania or graphorrhea, which exhibits a type of typomania.

0960. The Power of Story

The Power of Story is the greatest power. The Power of Story is the power to connect. The Power of Story is the power to connect the disconnected.

The Power of Story is the power to connect me to you. The Power of Story is the power to bring us together. The Power of Story is the power to bring us together here. The Power of Story is the power to create a partnership. The Power of Story is the power to create a friendship. The Power of Story is powerful.

The Power of Story is so powerful that it can connect everything everywhere that appears disconnected. The Power of Story is so powerful that it can connect everything that appears disconnected no matter how far they’re separated in space and time. The Power of Story is so powerful that it can go back in time and forward in time to reach everyone and everything everywhere and everywhen. The Power of Story is so powerful that it can transcend time and touch eternity. The Power of Story is so powerful that it can reach across space and time to bring us back from the dead before and after life. The Power of Story is so powerful that it can bring the living and dead together. The Power of Story is so powerful that it can create a place here and now where we can meet. The Power of Story is so powerful that I can tell you: You’re never alone and that I love you and that you’re already home.

0961. The Sorcerer

Before my initiation, I drink a bitter liquid and wait. When the sun has set behind the mountain, my guide leads me to the entrance of a cave and explains that, by entering back into the mother, I’m entering back into death, where I must die to be reborn a hunter. He hands me a bird rattle and a ceremonial spear. I take them and find myself sweating and trembling.

I take his torch and bow before the womb door of the mother and crawl into her birth canal. Inside, the howls and snarls of wolves and bears, and the grunts and stamps of bison and deer echo through the darkness. I crawl on until I see two large owl eyes reflected in the torchlight. I cry out and shake my bird rattle for protection, but the terrible beast roars and charges at me with its great antlers. I shake my rattle harder, scream, and raise my torch and spear in defense. The beast halts its charge and retreats. I give chase, following it into the womb chamber, where I see the sorcerous beastman, a composite of all the animals we hunt and are hunted by, and chase after it with my torch and spear. As we run in circles, the herds on the walls run with us. In our dance, I come close to catching the demon, and it comes close to catching me. But in the end, I succeed in stabbing it with my spear. When the beastman falls dead, I collapse exhausted and erect at its side.

0962. The Promethean Mystery as an Allegory for the Class War The story of Prometheus is the story of a god who brought us fire and was punished by the gods for giving us what wasn’t his to give.

This story is one we’re all familiar with in the West. The motif is repeated in the stories of the Snake in Eden and the fall of Lucifer, the Lightbearer, from Heaven. Whether by fruit or fire, divine knowledge is given to us, and God or the gods react violently against the thief and transgressor who dared to give us what they believed was theirs alone.

Many interpret this myth as Prometheus literally giving us actual fire to cook our food and light our nights. But there’s a deeper meaning.

The fire that Prometheus gave us was the divine fire within, of which actual fire was only the outward symbol and sign. Prometheus brought us divinity in the form of fire. With the gift of fire, we understood that we all possessed the divine spark within us. But there’s a deeper meaning still. Prometheus didn’t give us the divine spark, because he couldn’t give us what we already had. What Prometheus actually gave us was the fire of insight that allowed us to see the divine spark within. And once we knew the spark was there, we knew that we were like the gods themselves.

The gods said that they were afraid that if we were given this knowledge too soon it would lead to our destruction, but what they really feared was losing power, and this is why Prometheus was punished.

0963. Beyond the Claustrophobic Confines of Ourselves When reading the works of Dr. Stanislav Grof, we come to understand that we’re more than what we’ve been told we are. We're our bodies and our minds, for sure, but we’re also much more than that.

Dr. Grof shows us that we’re not only our postnatal, ‘after birth,’ biographies, but we’re also our prenatal, ‘before birth,’ biographies. And that we’re not only our prenatal and postnatal biographies; we’re also our perinatal, ‘at the time of birth,’ biographies.

Our biographies have always been greater than what we’ve been consciously aware of. They not only extend from today back in time to our births, but they extend past our births into the wombs of our mothers.

But Dr. Grof doesn’t stop there. He extends our biographies back to our parent’s biographies and our parent’s parents’ biographies, going back in time to include the entirety of our ancestral and phylogenetic memory.

By extending our biographies deep into the past, Dr. Grof connects us to all human life where our memories, histories, and biographies empty into the vast ocean of our collective unconsciousness. With a twist, our biographies can also be extended forward in time to our children’s biographies and our children’s childrens’ biographies, to include the entirety of our descendant and phylogenetic futurity.

By extending our biographies deep into the future, we can connect to the vast ocean of cosmic consciousness awaiting us all. By understanding our biographies in this manner, we can expand beyond the claustrophobic confines of our body-mind binary towards the holotropic, ‘movement towards wholeness,’ biography we all share.

0964. Betwixt Between

Like all books are for their authors, this book has been a rite of passage for me.

To write a book, you have to go inside yourself alone and emptyhanded. You have to go into the dark and endure the challenges of the betwixt between before you can return into the light gripping your manuscript.

To write a book is to undergo a test of your powers. It’s a trial of your strength, cunning, stamina, and vitality. It’s a magic ritual that turns you inside out. To complete the ordeal, you must find the magic words that turn you outside in again.

The words you write are magic. They’re a spell that first allows your readers to see inside you from the outside then lets them enter inside you.

Words let your readers wear your skin and see through your eyes and hear through your ears. All of your senses become their senses as they look out onto the world of your making. This is strong magic.

Wearing another’s skin is no easy task. But the more a reader does it, the easier it becomes for them to wear the skins of others and become others. This type of magic is needed now more than ever.

That’s why it’s the task of the author to write in a way that allows the reader to easily slip on their skin and see through their eyes and hear through their ears and share their senses.

As my time in the betwixt between comes to an end, I’m confident I’ve done just that.

0965. A Thought Experiment

I want you to perceive the Universe as a singular event. To do this, I want you to imagine yourself standing on top of a mountain on Earth looking at the world around you. Then, I want you to expand your imagination outwards to engulf the Moon, the Planets, and the Sun. Next, continue expanding outward until you’ve encompassed the entire Solar System.

Then, keep expanding outward until you’ve encompassed the entire Galaxy. Then, make the entire Universe one with your imagination until you are indistinguishable from it. Then, I want you to find the center of the Universe and pull it and yourself backwards through time until you reach the Singularity. Stay there for a moment. Feel yourself contained within the limits of the Singularity, feeling the fullness of your potential.

Then, let yourself explode outwards in the Big Bang. As you race forward in time, expanding and creating all the galaxies, suns, and planets, let yourself slowly disassociate from the Universe, to follow the formation of the Galaxy and Solar System until you become the young Earth when it appears. Now, grow with the Earth. When it stabilizes into a habitable planet and life evolves, disassociate from it and become one with life.

Follow life along its path of increasing complexity, marching out of the oceans and into the forests and out of the forests and across the plains and up the mountain to where you’re now standing looking at the world around you, knowing that the Universe is a singular event of which you are a part.

0966. Continuum, Residuum, and Vacuum

In this story, I’ll be covering the concepts of Continuum, Residuum, and Vacuum. For the purpose of this story, I ask that you pronounce Vacuum as “Vac-yoo-um” instead of “Vac-yoom” to keep a common phonetics between the words.

The Continuum is the consciousness of a person who understands they are a part of the Universe. In the Continuum, you’re you with a separate consciousness that is completely aware that it’s a part of the whole.

The Residuum is the consciousness of a person who associates strongly with their separate consciousness but still feels the pull of the Continuum.

Those in the Residuum are often unaware that the Continuum exists.

The reason for this is because their parents or teachers are often unaware that they themselves are part of the Continuum, and because of this, they’re unable to tell their students and children about their connection to the Continuum. Still, many in the Residuum feel that they've been disconnected from something larger than themselves for their entire lives.

In the Residuum, the residue of the Continuum still lingers. Here, you have to make a choice. You can either reconnect to the Continuum or you can mentally “cut ties with it” and enter the Vacuum.

The Vacuum is the consciousness of a person who has mentally cut ties with the Continuum. This may have been done consciously or unconsciously. Whichever it is, you believe you’re alone in the world and in the Universe, and in order to survive, you’ll do anything to anyone to protect yourself and what’s yours at any cost.

0967. Swimming Through a Sea of Diatoms

I dove into the ocean and shrank myself down so I could swim through a sea of diatoms and marvel at their many shapes. There were the flat ones and the thick ones. There were the smooth ones and the spiky ones.

There were the long tubular ones and the short tubular ones. There were the circles that looked like wagon wheels and the circles that looked like citrus fruit cross-sections. There were the circles that looked like mandalas and the circles that looked like suns. There were the triangle-, square-, pentagon-, and hexagon-shaped ones. There were the five-pointed and six-pointed star-shaped ones. There were the eyebrow-shaped ones and the eye-shaped ones and the teardrop-shaped ones. There were the lip-shaped ones and the infinity symbol-shaped ones. There were the lozenge-shaped ones and the boat-shaped ones. There were the cardioidshaped ones and the nephroid-shaped ones and the deltoid-shaped ones and the astroid-shaped ones. There were the tight spiral-shaped ones and the loose helical-shaped ones. There were the rectangular-shaped ones and the trapezoidal-shaped ones. There were the narrow rod-shaped ones and the wide cylinder-shaped ones. There were the spindle-shaped ones and the anti-spindle-shaped ones. There were the cone-shaped ones and the prism-shaped ones and the pyramid-shaped ones. There were the tetrahedron-, cube-, octahedron-, dodecahedron-, and icosahedronshaped ones. There were the rugose ones and the lobed ones. There were the branched ones and the finned ones. There were the ones whose shapes had no name. And I must confess, of all the diatoms shapes, those are the diatom shapes I like the best.

0968. The Thing in the Room

She didn’t like the sprawling mansion. Whenever she was cleaning, she felt someone or something inside with her. When she first felt this feeling, she realized she had never given any thought to the supernatural before.

She never had the time. She was always running from job to job or trying to find work. It was only after she was awarded the position of caretaker and felt the presence inside the mansion that she began thinking about those things. But with so few jobs on the market, she couldn’t complain. It put a roof over her head and paid her a decent wage. And since she didn’t have to pay rent, she was, for the first time in her life, able to save. Still, she made sure she was never inside the mansion after dark. Whenever the light began to wane, she’d put her things away and retire to her quarters above the stables. But even away from the mansion, she was still haunted by it. From the windows of her room, she could see a grotesque shape darken the upper window across from hers. And though she told herself it was only her imagination, she always skipped that room during her rounds. She’d rather face the wrath of her employers than face the thing in the room.

One night, she dreamed she was compelled to clean the room. When she opened the door, she saw the grotesque shape by the window. Hoping to make it disappear, she turned on the lights. But it turned and she saw its “face.”

0969. He Knew They Were Out There

He knew they were out there cannibalizing the corpses of children and imbibing the bone broth of babies. He had seen their salacious signs everywhere after listening intently to his pastor’s intense preaching from the pulpit. He knew they were out there perniciously poking, piercing, and penetrating people. He had watched and read their pornography repeatedly. He had to know his enemy to find them, and root them out, and destroy them utterly. He had to purge them from the city and wash it clean of their sins so the world would be free from their temptation.

But where could he find the secret lair of the Society of Satanic Sodomy? He imagined entering into an open stone sewer somewhere on the outskirts of a city, following it deep into the stygian bowels of the earth, twisting and turning until he reached a door that could only be opened by an obscene shibboleth that he somehow knew and uttered and entered into an unaired S&M dungeon stinking of blood, sweat, tears, and semen, where the cries of pain and lust mixed with the cracks of whips and the rattles of chains, echoing off the wet walls as a wicked orgy of wild abandon took place on black altars under the baleful eyes of the burnished bronze bust of Baphomet.

He screamed in horror at them, at their temptation. He screamed in horror at his arousal. They had to be punished. He had to be punished.

With flail in hand, he began self-flagellating until his blood ran.

But it wasn’t enough.

0970. A Single Plateau

Say the carceral body is incarcerated, corrupted and cancerized by the corrosive and co-optative forces of capitalism that leave no chinks in its armor or flaws in its walls, ceilings, or floors to exploit and escape the enforced schizophrenia. Say the external and transcendental territory beyond the body’s outer bodies that were once open for migration and territorialization can no longer be reached by former lines of flight, because these spaces are now owned and controlled by the forces of capital and the co-fusion and confusion of business and government, of private and public. Say the state apparatus maintains its territorialization through its main form of control, the overt threat of the war machine and its monopoly on violence supported by the subtle assemblage of the abstract machine, the panopticon whose faciality both surveils and projects its message in a subliminal sign language until the signified transforms into the signifier.

Say that’s how it is. Then we must remember that the mind is a secret the body keeps, it is our body without organs, capable of instantaneously destratifying all stratifications through the discovery and reterritorialization of the immanent spaces inside ourselves where we arboresce in new lines of flight, creating novel pathways and territories of love and connection, community and communication, that give rise to rhizomatic nodes where nomads cross paths creating a novel synaptic map in the intraextraterritoriality of a new within-without until we all belong to the withinternet that absorbs capitalism into itself, re-embodying and transmogrifying it, and reopening the external and transcendental territory for remigration and reterritorialization.

0971. Destroy the Circle First

The voice of the mushroom said to me, “Destroy the Circle first.” Not understanding what it meant, I asked, “What Circle must be destroyed?”

The voice of the mushroom repeated, “Destroy the Circle first.”

At first, this made little sense, and like the Fool at Zero, I failed to see both sides and meanings of “the Circle.” Was the Circle not perfect?

Was its circumference not infinite? Was its scope not eternal? It was; but over the years, I discovered that the Circle is another name for the Wheel of Samsara, the Wheel of Birth and Death, the Wheel of Time, and the Wheel of Fortune. We are bound to this Wheel and this Wheel is Hell.

For: “Hell is just another name for eternal repetition of the same.”

The Circle-Wheel had to be destroyed to set the perfect, infinite, and eternal Circle free. When our thoughts, words, and deeds trap us, when the letters of our laws lose their spirit, when our symbols no longer have meaning, when the Circle becomes fixed within the Wheel, we must destroy it.

But how do we destroy the Wheel to free the Circle? To do this, we must first know the Wheel is there. And when we know it’s there, we must find it around our hearts, minds, and bodies where it has calcified and paralyzed our love. And when we’ve found it, we must use our hearts, minds, and bodies to smash the calcified and paralyzed walls around our love. And we must do this over and over, again and again.

0972. Spring Theory

Time has always been presented to us as the linear arrow of time. We’ve all been told about entropy, about broken glasses, plates, and eggs, and the non-reversibility of time. But the experience of time, for me, has always been cyclical as well as linear.

Take your average day, for instance. We wake up in the morning and go to bed at night. We do this over and over again, but no two days are the same. Or take the cycles of the seasons. The seasons repeat themselves year after year, but they never repeat themselves exactly like the year before.

From these experiences, I imagine the cycles of time not as a closed circle but an open one, where each new cycle passes over and on top of the previous cycle. Time is still moving linearly, but now it curves out and into a three-dimensional spring going round and round, stacking one cycle on top of the last.

The larger cycle of time that makes up a year will be composed of 365 smaller cycles for the days. And this larger cycle of the year may be the smaller cycle of some larger, unknown cycle. And this smaller cycle of the day may be the larger part of some smaller, unknown cycle, until we have springs within springs within springs.

This means that all time is intertwined and that it can be plucked like a guitar string, sending vibrations forward and backward through time that affects everything along the chain of causality, and produces a hitherto unheard cosmic music.

0973. The Meta-Comic and the Court Jester

Laughter is great medicine for the soul, especially in these trying times.

That’s why I watch as much stand-up comedy as I can. When I say that “I watch as much stand-up comedy as I can,” I mean “I watch as many comedy specials online and on streaming services as I can,” because I never go out to comedy clubs because that means going out and being around people in a crowd.

But, after watching hundreds of stand-up specials, I started noticing a pattern in the styles of comedians. The most common style seems to be the meta-comic. These comedians are hypersensitive and obsessively selfaware. They devour their lives for material and report back with a detailed self-analysis. They come off as narcissistic, but aren’t. For them, comedy is the place where their self-confidence meets their deepest insecurities.

I like this style because it’s human and relatable. Life is fucked, the comedian’s life is fucked, my life is fucked, we’re all fucked, but we have this hour together where we can laugh about it.

But the style I have the greatest respect for, because it’s the rarest, is the modern court jester who uses their privileged position to speak truth to power. Like the court jesters of old, they tell the king he wears a cardboard crown and they remind the emperor that he wears no clothes.

They show us the stupidity, brutality, and insecurity of those in power.

They bring them down to our level and humanize them. And they prove that the fool is no fool, but wise.

0974. The Book of Miracles

The Book of Miracles or The Augsburg Book of Miracles is an illustrated manuscript produced in Germany somewhere around 1550. German publisher Taschen released a deluxe copy of it in 2013. My brother bought me a copy for my 40th birthday, writing in the accompanying card, “Because we could all use more miracles in our lives.”

What’s funny about this is that the miracles in The Book of Miracles aren’t miracles the way we think about miracles today. The miracles in The Book of Miracles are miracles showing the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world.

The Book of Miracles is divided into three sections. The first section shows the biblical myth of creation through the visions of Old Testament prophets. The last section shows the New Testament visions of St. John in the Book of Revelations. And the middle section shows the miracles.

For this section, the artist-authors scoured history for every sign of the end of the world and drew deliciously detailed pictures of these weather and astrological events, plagues and infestations, floods and eruptions, monsters and horrors, visions and hallucinations that had been seen over the centuries.

So, when my brother writes, “Because we could all use more miracles in our lives,” he’s effectively saying, “Because we could all use more signs of the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world.” I know what he meant, but it’s funny for two reasons: 1) because my brother’s not religious, and 2) because, in a secular way, he got what he wished for.

0975. The Mountain of Corpses

The wisdom-seeker was told many rumors about the guru he sought. All agreed that the guru was immortal and sat atop a mountain of corpses.

Some said that the corpses were the bodies of the wisdom-seekers killed by the guru when they came to him searching for wisdom. Others said that the corpses were the bodies of the wisdom-seekers killed by the guru and inhabited by his spirit until a new wisdom-seeker arrived. Still others said that the corpses were the guru’s that he perpetually shed to sustain his eternal life. But no matter which version they held, all were afraid of the guru and his mountain of corpses.

Undeterred, the wisdom-seeker traveled to the mountain of corpses and began climbing. As he hauled himself up the mountain, he noticed that each corpse was identical to the other. Remembering one of the rumors, he thought the guru must have attained eternal life by shedding his body like a snake sheds its skin. But as he climbed, he noticed that the corpses were getting older, and when he reached the summit and the guru, he found a wizened old man.

“Guru, I’ve climbed your mountain of corpses, can you please tell me what they are and why they’re here?”

“Each corpse is a younger self that I killed in order to grow. I sit upon them to remind myself who I once was.”

“How does one know when to kill their older selves?”

“Whenever the rigidity of fear has hardened the love in your heart, then you must kill that self.”

0976. Creep

He heard the floor creak and opened an eye. She was standing halfway between the bed and the door.

“What’re you doing, you creep?” he asked.

“Trying not to wake you,” she said.

“Come here and sit down,” he said, patting the bed and shifting back to make room for her.

“I just came to get your phone.”

“What do you need my phone for?”

“I need to check something.”

“Come here and sit down.”

“I just need the phone.”

“Come on,” he said, patting the bed.

She shuffled to the bed and sat down.

“That wasn’t too hard now was it?”

She picked up his phone. “Can I go now?”

“Why? You just got here,” he said, rubbing her back. “Stay awhile.”

“You called me a creep.”

“Well, you were creeping around weren’t you?”

“I guess.”

“Well, a creep creeps.”

“Do you really think I’m a creep?”

“Do you really think I’d marry a creep?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know. Would you?”

“Lay down next to me for a minute,” he said shifting back and making room on the pillow.

“I don’t want to have sex.”

“I’m not asking for sex. I’m asking you to lay down.”

“Why?” “Just lay down so I can hold you for a minute.”

She sighed, dropped her shoulder, and lifted her legs onto the bed.

He curled his arm around her, pulled her close, breathed deeply through her hair, and said, “You always smell good.”

“I just farted,” she said.

“I told you you were a creep,” he said.

And they both laughed.

0977. On the Nature of the True Cross

The True Cross has three parts: the vertical mast, the horizontal beam, and the point of intersection. The mast and the beam of the True Cross are of equal lengths representing the balance of opposites between the masculine and feminine forces in the world and in our lives. The vertical mast represents God the Father; the horizontal beam represents the Mother Goddess; and the point of intersection represents the Child. The point of intersection is the point where you are found. It is the point of sacrifice. As the Child of the two forces, it is your duty to keep them united and in balance within yourself. The nature of sacrifice is to limit your power in order to ensure balance. Balance inside oneself means balance in the world outside yourself.

Comparatively, the mast of the standard Christian Cross is always longer than the beam, meaning the Church represents a greater masculine force in the world.The standard Christian Cross is the symbol of patriarchy.

We can see this imbalance in the Trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and the neutered Holy Spirit. Nowhere, except in esoteric texts, do we see the Holy Spirit represented as the Divine Mother Sophia. To bring the patriarchy back into balance and heal the world and ourselves, we must increase matriarchal power.

There is also the idolatry of Christ on the Cross. Christ sacrificed himself for our sins. But we continue to miss the intersectional mark by keeping Christ and the Cross outside of us while denying to mirror his sacrifice within.

0978. The Weird

The word weird comes from the Old English word wyrd, which means ‘to come to pass’ or ‘fate.’ Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters, the three witches from Macbeth, are the Greek Moirai, the Roman Parcae, and the Norse Norns, who mete out the thread of life. Clotho, the maiden spinner, holds the distaff, Lachesis, the mother allotter, draws forth the thread, and Atropos, the unturnable crone, cuts it. Thus, the word weird is entwined with the concepts of life, death, and time.

Weird literature draws our attention to this triple concept by having us confront our death with deathlessness and our time with timelessness.

It does this by shifting our perspective from local mortal humans to cosmic immortal gods. This sharp shift opens up a gulf so vast that our lives are instantly swallowed by an insignificance that causes all but the most steadfast to lose their sanity. Supported by scientific materialism and rationalism, weird literature opens a door onto an abyss and hurls us into meaninglessness. It forces us to ask the existential question: What does it mean to be human in an uncaring cosmos? When no answer is heard, we despair.

The greatest writer of weird literature is arguably H.P. Lovecraft. No one has managed to express the idea of cosmic horror the way he has.

But Lovecraft wasn’t the first. Lord Dunsany laid the groundwork for this type of fiction with The Gods of Pegāna. Dunsany’s legacy was continued in many popular short stories by Algernon Blackwood and in William Hope Hodgson’s superb novel The House on the Borderland.

0979. The Strange

The word strange comes from the Latin extraneus, meaning ‘external’ or ‘from outside.’ Strange literature comes in three forms: The first is a fictional world that is consistently strange to the reader but is navigated for the entire story by the protagonist as if it were normal. The second is a fictional world that is normal to the reader and protagonist until a consistently strange world is found existing within or alongside it. The third is a fictional world that starts off as normal to the reader and protagonist until a consistently normal world is found existing within or alongside of it, making the original consistently strange.

In the first form, the reader’s world is the normal world and the world of the protagonist is a consistently strange world of dream or hallucination, like we’re entering the Zone in Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic. Here we find the novels of William S. Burroughs and Anna Kavan.

In the second form, we have the classic set up for stories like C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, whose normal worlds act as a starting point that draws us into the fantastic worlds that exist within or alongside them.

In the third form, we have the plots of many dystopian fictions. We start in a world of normalized strangeness that isn’t seen as strange until a normal world presents itself within or alongside it.

Strange fiction has us ask the existential questions: Is this world real?

Is this world normal? Is there an alternative out there?

0980. The Uncanny

The ‘can’ in uncanny comes from the word ken, which means ‘to know, or understand, or be familiar with.’ Psychologist Ernst Jentsch discussed the uncanny in terms of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story, The Sandman, with the uncanny living doll Olympia. Neurologist Sigmund Freud expanded the uncanny from Olympia to include The Sandman’s atmosphere. Later, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan introduced the concept of the mirror stage in child development and associated uncanniness with anxiety and angst.

Later still, roboticist Masahiro Mori described the Uncanny Valley as the negative emotional response living people have towards lifelike dolls, puppets, or mannequins.

As robotics and artificial intelligence catches up with Olympia, the circle closes with Jentsch’s original idea of uncanniness and formulates the existential question: What does it mean to be human?

In literature, the uncanny can be used to great effect in unsettling the protagonist, and the reader, with the uncertainty of humanness. Philip K. Dick is the master of creating this tension between humans and robots posing as humans. Dick’s short story Second Variety is an excellent example.

We can feel the gut punch protagonist Joseph Hendricks feels after he fails to distinguish between a human and a killer robot posing as human thereby dooming the last of mankind.

In his novel Solaris, Stanislaw Lem also uses the uncanny to create tension between the scientists aboard the orbiting space station and the “visitors” created by the psychic alien ocean planet Solaris. Protagonist Dr. Kris Kelvin is forced to confront his “visitor” Rheya, a former lover and suicide, about her present reality and their past.

0981. Notes to Ward off Screen Fictions

Before COVID dominated every aspect of our lives, there were many among us complaining about how screens dominated every aspect of our lives. We were told about the many negative effects screens were having on our personal lives and were given strategies to limit their use by wellpaid pundits and well-meaning friends. Whether it was the screens of our phones, computers, or televisions, screens were seen as something that had to be ignored, set aside, or put away to return to a more real reality.

Now, during COVID, the screen has become our lifeline to our family and friends and an escape from a reality that’s all too real. I won’t deny that before COVID, when you could visit your family and friends or go out to a bar or restaurant, it was annoying to be around people who couldn’t hold a conversation with you without checking their phone every five seconds as if they were waiting for God Himself to return their call and answer their prayers. But the desire to interpose screens between reality and ourselves is nothing new. Just as complaining about interposing screens between reality and ourselves is nothing new. Whenever a new screen was developed, and its novelty created a new interface for people, there was always some authority hack complaining about its evils. This fearmongering is justified in certain instances, like texting while driving, but in most cases it’s a supreme fiction. We’ve been interposing visible and invisible screens between reality and ourselves since time immemorial. It’s called music and language. It’s called art.

0982. The Nature of Art and the Art of Nature

Whether we know it or not, we divide art and nature in our minds. We often define “art” as anything created by humans and “nature” as everything else. This divide happens at the threshold of consciousness, between the me and not me, the us and not us. We call everything in nature “natural” and everything human “artificial,” that is, “unnatural.” The bias is also found in the word “art,” which implies craft, as well as artifice.

Why do we call everything we create fake? As if we’re somehow not a part of nature, but divorced from it by our consciousness.

This is a sad state of affairs. It shows the fundamental disconnect we all have at the base of our awareness. Though we’re the conscious extension of nature itself, we somehow believe that we, and the things we create, aren’t natural.

But we, and the things we create, are natural.

Art is natural. Our art, like our consciousness, is an extension of nature. There’s nothing unnatural about it. Nature is, of course, beautiful.

The sound of the wind sighing through the trees is beautiful. The wind may not be speaking in a language we understand, but we can make the wind speak for us in our language when we invest it with our imagination, and it becomes the voice of that lonely feeling in our hearts. Nature has a beautiful voice, but it is made more beautiful when we add our voice to it. And when the wind dies down, we fill the silence by singing songs and telling stories.

0983. Screens Are Natural

Don’t let anyone tell you that screens aren’t natural. To understand the naturalness of screens, let’s start by defining invisible and visible screens. Invisible screens are screens that we use as an extension of our consciousness to communicate our internal reality to others across space.

Visible screens are screens that we use as an extension of our consciousness to communicate our internal reality to others across space and time.

To understand what I mean by invisible screens, let’s imagine our earliest ancestors playing a reed flute and making music or talking to each other and telling stories. These invisible screens of abstract music and concrete language become a medium of communication from one consciousness to another across space, making them as real and natural as the songs and vocalizations of the animals around them.

To understand what I mean by visible screens, let’s remember that our earliest ancestors could only pass down music and stories from player to player and teller to teller using the invisible screens of direct transmission.

But when we turn invisible screens into visible screens, that is, when we transform music into notes and stories into words, then record them on stone, clay, papyrus, vellum, or paper, abstract music and concrete language can be indirectly transmitted from one consciousness to another across space and time.

Without visible screens, we couldn’t access the music and stories left behind by our earliest ancestors. And since all of us are extensions of nature, the invisible and visible screens we use are also a part of nature and are natural.

0984. The Reality of Screens

Hopefully, we can now all agree that screens, and the art they contain, are human and natural. Let’s now look at screens and reality by defining reality, or the real world, as the human world that busies itself over and on top of the natural world.

Our concept of reality is bound to all things human, but more importantly, it’s bound to the dominant system of social control. This is why those in authority condemn certain screens as dangerous and those using them as escapists trying to escape from dominant reality. Because screens allow users to interface with other users across space and time, they’re seen as subversive technologies that need to be controlled by insecure systems of power. And that’s why, throughout history, the great visible screens of books were burned along with their writers and readers.

Power understands power. Screens are powerful because they have the ability to lure the viewer away from the reality imposed by the dominant system of social control. Every time we interpose a screen between reality and ourselves, we’re interposing a new reality between our reality and our given reality. And this new reality might make us question and wake up from the reality we’ve taken for granted all our lives.

We can be certain that the reality provided by most screens is made to strengthen our given reality and the dominant system of social control, but there are screens that call our reality into question and offer alternative realities that can be achieved by broadening our current system to become more inclusive.

0985. Screens Are Double-Edged Swords

Like all things in life, screens are double-edged swords. They can be used to cut our bonds and free us, or they can be used to bind and imprison us.

But we must remember that their prison is not uncomfortable. All of the hyperviolent and hypersexualized junk food we consume has been made to maintain the dominant neoliberal capitalist paradigm. It’s meant to keep us fat, sick, and powerless, or competing for scraps, or aggressively trying to scale the pyramid of power to rise above the imposed sanctions and austerity. Those are the screens the powerful want us lost in. Those screens reinforce their power and position. That’s why they’re cleverly designed to addict us.

Invisible and visible screens are everywhere around us. They’re so much a part of our nature, and a part of nature, that we don’t even know they’re there until they’re pointed out to us. But once we see them, we can’t unsee them. We may forget, or choose to forget, but they can’t truly be forgotten. Once we see the screens, we need to help each other see and remember the screens. It’s up to us to keep reminding each other that the screens are there and are double-edged swords. We have to keep asking each other: Do we want our screens to liberate us or keep us in bondage?

The question needs to be asked over and over again. We need to ask it about everything that appears on our screens: Is this liberating me or keeping me in bondage? The choice is ours.

0986. We Have a Long History of Utopian Story Screens We have a long history of utopian story screens. These stories offered, and continue to offer, visions of other realities. Let’s look at the history of utopias printed after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with movable type in 1440: 1516 – Sir Thomas More Utopia 1607 – Joseph Hall Mundus Alter et Idem 1624 – Sir Francis Bacon The New Atlantis 1656 – James Harrington The Commonwealth of Oceana 1666 – Margaret Cavendish The Blazing World 1726 – Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels 1709 – Delarivier Manley The New Atalantis 1836 – Mary Griffith Three Hundred Years Hence 1837 – James Reynolds Equality: A History of Lithconia 1870 – Edward Bulwer-Lytton The Coming Race 1881 – Mary E. Bradley Lane Mizora: World of Women 1887 – W. H. Hudson A Crystal Age 1888 – Edward Bellamy Looking Backward 1889 – George Corbette New Amazonia 1890 – William Morris News from Nowhere 1893 – Alice Ilgenfritz Jones & Ella Merchant Unveiling a Parallel 1894 – William Dean Howells A Traveler from Altruria 1897 – Edward Bellamy Equality 1899 – H. G. Wells When the Sleeper Wakes 1905 – H. G. Wells A Modern Utopia 1911 – Charlotte Perkins Gilman Moving the Mountain 1915 – Charlotte Perkins Gilman Herland 1916 – Charlotte Perkins Gilman With Her in Ourland 1923 – H. G. Wells Men Like Gods 1924 – Upton Sinclair The Millennium 1933 – James Hilton Lost Horizon 1942 – Austin Tappan Wright Islandia 1948 – B. F. Skinner Walden Two 1955 – Rex Gordon Utopia 239 1962 – Aldous Huxley Island 1975 – Ernest Callenbach Ecotopia 1979 – George Zebrowski Macrolife: A Mobile Utopia 1984-90 – Kim Stanley Robinson Three Californias Trilogy 1992-96 – Kim Stanley Robinson The Mars Trilogy 2004 – Scott Wilson Utopia X

0987. Topias of Non-Fiction and Fiction

In story 0846, I wrote how all fictional literature, and the characters, families, societies, and environments they contain, could be placed somewhere on the Utoposcale between the left pole of benign, selfless, socialist utopias for all and the right pole of predatory, selfish, fascist autopias for one. This scale can be used for non-fiction literature and the societies that write them as well. But there are two other scales, one for non-fiction and one for fiction, that I want to introduce to help us understand these broad categories.

Let’s look at non-fiction and the Scale of Objectivity. The left side of the scale will be completely objective literature and the right side of the scale will be completely subjective literature. On the far left side of the scale will be professional and popular scientific writing. As it moves right and more subjectivity is added to the writing, we get history, biography, and journalism. When it moves all the way to the right, we get autobiography, memoirs, journals, and letters.

Let’s look at fiction next and the Scale of Possibility. The left side of the scale will be completely possible literature and the right side of the scale will be completely impossible literature. On the far left side of the scale will be fictional literature with worlds and characters very much like those in our world. As it moves right and more impossibility is added to the writing, we get magical realism. When it moves all the way to the right, we get speculative fiction and all the genres it covers.

0988. The Impossible Becomes the Possible, the Subjective Becomes the Objective If we connect the Scale of Objectivity to the Scale of Possibility, we create a continuum of Truth and Reality, where the most objective is on the far left and the most impossible is on the far right, with the Scale of Objectivity representing the external world and the Scale of Possibility representing our internal world. And where the two scales meet, a door opens between them allowing movement from the subjective fiction of our internal world to become the objective reality of our external world.

When an idea forms in our minds, it is only an idea. The idea, no matter how far-out or far-off, is at that time a current impossibility. But as we draw that idea towards external reality, we begin moving it towards possibility. This happens along the familiar path of thought, word, and action. First, we have the idea. Then, we speak the idea. Then, we act to make the idea a reality.

Everything that starts off as impossible and unreal is made possible and real along that path. If we dream of a utopia where everyone has all of their basic human needs met, it will at first seem impossible and unreal.

But after you begin talking about it with other people, it will become more possible and more real. When enough people believe in it and collectively act on it, then the impossible and unreal subjective idea becomes the very possible and real objective reality. This is how all art and change is made.

This is how we got where we are now.

0989. Everything We Have, We Have Because of Fiction We can’t live without fiction. Everything we have, we have because of fiction. Every idea started off as fiction before it became non-fiction.

Every idea started off as subjective before it became objective. Every idea started off as impossible before it became possible. Every idea started off as unreal before it became real.

Fiction is the birthplace of everything we have. It is the expression of our dreams and imagination. Through fiction, we can bring anything, even things that are physically impossible, into reality. And though the fiction remains impossible and unreal, it has entered reality as possible and real.

We might not be able to fly through the air like Superman, but because Superman flies, we can fly, even though we can’t fly like Superman yet. And the “yet” contains it all. Because Superman can fly, we can fly. And when the time is right, we’ll create the conditions that allow us to fly like him.

This is what fiction does. It allows us to bring the impossible into reality. And once the impossible is out there, it becomes that much closer to becoming real. We must never underestimate the power of fiction, or the power of our dreams and imagination, which are the sources of fiction.

We all have the power to bring our dreams into reality. But let us hope they are the dreams of a superhero and not the nightmares of a supervillain. Let us hope that our dreams are large enough to embrace everyone. Let us hope our dreams bring a better tomorrow into reality.

0990. Blank Page Worship

I ask: What is more worthy of worship than the Blank Page?

Nothing. Nothing is more worthy of worship than the Blank Page.

Look at any blank page and you’ll see the pure potential out of which Everything is born. Look behind the words of this story and you’ll see a blank page. This blank page is the Blank Page, because every blank page is the Blank Page. The Blank Page contains every story that was ever written and unwritten. There is no upper limit to what the Blank Page contains; it is inexhaustible. We may be limited by our imaginations, but we’re never limited by the Blank Page. We are the limitation; the Blank Page is never the limitation.

Over the course of this book, I’ve given you a thousand examples of what the Blank Page can become. But that’s nothing. These are a mere thousand stories in an infinitude of stories. I could write stories from the time I was born to the time I died and I’d never write all the stories contained within the Blank Page. I could live as long as the Universe, writing from our births to our deaths, and I’d still never tap a fraction of the potential of the Blank Page.

That’s why, whenever I see a blank page, I see God. The Blank Page is God, is the place where God creates. And that’s why, when I die, I’ll return to the pure potentiality of my blank page that will become one with the Blank Page from which we all came.

0991. The Spirit, Mind, and Body of a Book

Technology has allowed us to understand the Spirit, Mind, and Body of a book. A book on the internet, available to anyone, is the incorporeal book, the Spirit of the book. The book’s Spirit exists somewhere online in the cloud, somewhere in heaven. The reader has to go online, has to type into the search engine the magic words that will open the gates of heaven and grant them access to the Spirit of the book. When the reader’s done reading, they close out the book and its Spirit returns back to its heaven in the clouds.

Not satisfied with having access to the Spirit of the book, the reader may choose to download the Spirit of the book into their portable devices, where it becomes the Mind of the book and resides with the Minds of other books. The reader, looking to connect to the book’s Mind, only has to power up their device and retrieve and open the book’s file to connect to the book’s Mind, which lives perpetually inside their portable devices or in the libraries of their drives or servers.

The reader may want to have the Spirit-Mind of the book incarnated in a physical Body. This, of course, is the oldest technology, where the book is printed with liquid inks on material paper. The Body of a book is beautiful to hold and behold. The Body of a book stimulates all the senses.

And like all Bodies, the Body of a book gets old, breaks down, and dies, though its Mind and Spirit live on.

0992. Stoppin’ by for Dinner

Reader, I’m trying to set up these stories so they can be read online for free. I want them to be available to you free of charge because I think you should have access to them without having to pay for them. There are so many gatekeepers out there demanding money for every little thing.

I hate getting nickled and dimed. It’s like everyone’s trying to bleed you dry. It’s like death by a thousand cuts. And during a pandemic and an economic and environmental collapse, I just want to share these with you.

Imagine the website where you might be reading these stories as my home and I’ve invited you over for dinner. And you ask, because you’re a good person, “J, is there anything I can bring?” To which I answer, “Nah, just bring yourself. I’ve got everything covered. The menu’s all laid out.” And because you don’t want to impose or appear like you’re taking advantage of me, you ask, “What about wine or dessert?” And I say, “Nah. I got everything. I just need you. You make the meal. The meal wouldn’t be the meal without you. You’re the most important ingredient.” And we agree on a time, and you show up, and come into my home where the food’s already prepared. And we sit down and we eat together. And what I mean by “eat” is you reading the stories I’ve written for you. Stories are food for the soul. So, I’m feeding you stories. Baba said to feed people. So, feed people I must.

0993. Payin’ for Your Meal

But let’s say that you’ve come into my home and I’ve made you this mealbook and you really like eating-reading my food-stories and you say to me, “You know, J. I really like your food-stories and I’d like to take them home with me.” To which I answer, “Thanks. You can take them home in the form of an ebook or a book. Since the ebook doesn’t cost much to make, I’m only asking for a small donation. But to make a book, trees need to be cut down and paper made, and I have to pay for printing, boxes, and shipping. So, I have to charge you for the book.” This should make sense to everyone.

Likewise, if you say, “You know, J. I really like your stories and I’d like to use them to make something out of them, or include them, in the same or another medium, in an effort to make money, not just for me, but for the business I either own, work for, or represent.” To which I answer, “If these stories leave this place and enter your place. Then, just like buying the ebook or book above, you have to pay me for them. Further, if you want to then use them to make something else, then you have to pay me for that too. This needs to be done, because you’re no longer just reading my stories here, but are looking to profit off them in some way, somewhere else, in the same or another medium.” This should make sense to everyone.

0994. Service Station

In today’s world, where we’re squeezed from all sides and pulled from every angle, it’s easy to forget about the nature of service. We don’t really understand what it means to serve each other, our communities, or our world.

One service we might know today is the service of the service economy, within which many of us work and are exploited, because a service worker is designed to be replaceable and expendable.

The other service we might know is the full- or self-service pumps at gas stations where we fill our cars with liquid carbon that when burned produces atmosphere-destroying gas.

Another service we might know is joining the service, or the military, where recruits are trained to fight America’s wars of imperialism to extract resources from weaker nations.

And another type of service that many are familiar with is the church service, where the faithful go to become deeply indoctrinated into dogma.

With these types of service in our lives, it’s no wonder we’ve forgotten what real service is to each other, our communities, and our world. Serving others, our communities, and our world should be our number one priority, because serving them is the same as serving ourselves.

Reader, this book was written in service to you. This book was written to engage, entertain, and edify everyone receptive to its message. I hope this book is a place where everyone can find shelter and read and refuel and return to the world armed with self-confidence and willing to engage each other as emissaries of love, hope, and change.

0995. Kenosis

As this work nears its completion and I look back over everything I’ve written, I’m struck by what I can only call the kenotic.

Kenosis, for those not in the know, is the Greek word for ‘emptying.’

In the Christian tradition, this means the self-emptying of a person’s will to make room for the divine will.

I suppose it can be credibly argued that, since everyone’s a part of God, all wills must in fact be God’s will. But if you’ve ever encountered someone filled with God, you know there’s a real difference.

I don’t claim to be filled with divine will any more than the next person, but I can say that I have, at times, felt filled with the will of my muse. Many writers can attest to this. So, there’s nothing terribly original about making this claim.

The muse is ancient and has many names. The one I’ve always admired most was Garcia Lorca’s earthy daimon, the duende. But my muse is the Gray Lady, Achlys, the Death Mist.

There have been times when I’ve fully felt her presence by my side, channeling through me as I write. She’s the queen of my dreams and hypnagogic state, where she has allowed me to see beyond the Veil and make connections that I wouldn’t have otherwise made.

And, as I wrote these stories and cannibalized much of my older writings, I felt like I was purging myself of myself by sacrificing my earlier selves to me in this tome, thereby emptying myself for her, and readying our home.

0996. There Is Another

There is another who I should mention here at this place of emptying and fulfillment. This someone doesn’t like to be mentioned. He’s rather secretive and likes to remain hidden. He tells me that our relationship is ours alone, that it’s not for others, it's just for us. And that’s the way I like it too. But sometimes I forget and start talking about him.

And when I do, I never want to stop. Because who wouldn’t want to talk and talk and talk about the light they found in the darkness? Who wouldn’t want to tell the whole world about that? But whenever I start talking, I immediately see him shaking his head and wagging his finger at me. It’s the same finger he uses to tell me we’re all one. And as I watch him grinning and gently scolding me, I grin too and get lost in the rhythm of his wagging finger and become confused and lose my train of thought.

That’s when I let it go and stop talking and trail off like an imbecile. But I have to respect his request.

It’s funny. I have pictures of him everywhere in my home and whenever people come over no one ever asks me who he is. It’s like he’s hiding in plain sight. I get a good laugh at this. I could never see a picture of him and not immediately be drawn to it. That’s how it is with us. He’s always with me, even when I forget about him.

I’ve known him for lifetimes.

0997. Enambered Again

What I love about this book, as I reach its end and it reaches its end, is that I’m aware of it becoming an artifact, like a block of amber, where the peculiar bugs, debris, and air pockets of my peculiar life, and the peculiar lives of my characters, are trapped inside.

What I love about this book is that each inclusion in the amber is its own story with its own history that came into existence in time to be trapped in the warm sap of my sapient mind and transferred into the solidifying medium that is this book.

What I love about this book is that when it’s all over, and I’m no longer writing it, and the storytelling is no longer a living process, and it’s completed and published, I’ll be able to hold it in my hands, as you’ll be able to hold it in your hands, as long as physical books are made.

What I love about this book is imagining you as a paleontologist, making paper thin sagittal cuts through the amber, so you can study each of the thousand inclusions one by one, and learn about me and my mind and what I thought when I thought it by reading stories and having fun and being entertained.

What I love about this book is that if these stories, these insects and debris of my mind, are suspended in time, then I too am suspended in time, and the something or someone that was me will remain behind until everyone and everything is gone.

0998. Story Lord

I don’t know if I’m going to keep writing 260-word stories after I’m done with this book. I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I really like the brevity of them. I really like how much I can pack into a few words. So, there’s a part of me that does and there’s a part of me that doesn’t. But what I do know for certain is that, as I near a thousand stories, I want to call myself a Story Lord. Not the Story Lord, but a Story Lord.

I know this probably sounds gimmicky or arrogant or ridiculous, but I think I’ve earned it. And I need no one’s permission to dub myself a Story Lord, especially when it comes to the 260-word variety that I’ve been writing here. So, I dub myself Story Lord and over myself I am mitred and crowned.

Reader, your reading of this story is you bearing witness to my selfcoronation. You can imagine it any way you like. Maybe I’m in something resembling a gothic library lined with books, tomes, scrolls, and tablets, surrounded by somber scribes dressed in bright scarlet, imperial purple, and ruddy gold, and there’s much pomp and ceremony surrounding a large throne where I sit, head on hand, looking on with a bored sense of entitlement. But that’s not me. I hate being the center of attention. To get closer to the truth, you can just imagine it like it is: me sitting alone at my computer typing these words with confidence and finality: I am a Story Lord.

0999. Live Long and Prospero

So, dear Reader, we’ve reached the penultimate story together. My little tempest in a teapot, surging around my small island, where I, like Prospero, must break my wand and throw my spell book into the sea, or, like Ariel, am chafing at the bit to be free.

But if Mr. William Shakespeare is a veiled Prospero, and if Mr. Wallace Stevens is a veiled Ariel, then perhaps I’ll be a veiled Caliban, a deformed mooncalf compared to the likes of them, but who may occasionally rise to say something profound: Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again.

But since my initials aren’t W. S., I’ll never be a part of their club, unless, of course, I changed my name to William Shatner, which I might.

Or perhaps the better strategy is to say what Virgil said to Dante before he exited stage left at the 27th Canto of Purgatory. To paraphrase: I invest you, my friends, to be mitred and crowned and sovereign over yourselves.

That’s a nicer ending and a kinder farewell.

Reader, I put the wand and spell book in your hand. They’re yours now.

With them, if you so desire, you can become a Story Lord/Lady like me.

But whatever you choose, I say unto you: Live Long and Prospero.

1000. Loveverepeating

Reader, before we go our separate ways, I want to leave you with a parting gift, a final blessing, and piece of advice: This world of ours is whatever we make it to be. It is, in short, the story we speak and write and live. I ask that you have the courage to always tell the story of love, so that anyone feeling disconnected in the world today or in the world to come, will hear the steady heartbeat that unites us all across space and time: LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVEVEREPEATING

1001. Backword Postface For the record, story 0001. Squaring the Circle was written October 14, 2017, story 0002. Jason Odysseus was written October 15, 2017, and story 0003. Foam was written October 20, 2017. Story 0004. The Building of Life was written March 27, 2018 and story 0006. A Symbol for Home was written April 29, 2018. Story 0007. The Roadblock was written December 20, 2018 and story 0008. Never Over Ever was written December 31, 2018. I don’t remember what originally stood in for story 0005, which is now The Legens, but it may have been Seeding, which was pulled for rewrites and was added back in as story 0244 when I returned to writing after falling down the Girardian rabbit hole.

Stories 0008 through 0520 and stories 0911 and 1000 were written in Lake Ronkonkoma, New York between December 31, 2018 and February 13, 2020 with the exception of story 0159. Party On, which was written November 3, 2020 to replace the original story My Door Is Always Open, which became the Foreword Preface.

Stories 0521 through 0820 and 0995 through 0999 were written in Odenton, Maryland between February 14, 2020 and May 29, 2020.

Stories 0821 to 0994 were written in Vienna, Virginia between May 30, 2020 and July 23, 2020.

Editing, layout, and design, as well as writing the abovementioned story, took place in North Adams, Massachusetts between August 31, 2020 and November 15, 2021.

This book contains my opinions and views at the time of writing.

With the single exception of Love, all else is subject to change.

a thousand stories

About A Thousand Stories Reader, I wanted you to know that I started writing this book as a collection of science fiction, slipstream, and fantasy stories with some horror, humor, and romance mixed in. But as the book and I deepened our dialogue, we realized that the format was perfect for pretty much anything. This makes the book impossible to categorize because it now includes: abstracts, acrostics, album reviews, alternative histories, analyses, anatomies, aphorisms, artworks, apotheoses, autobiographies, autozoëographies, biographies, blessings, board games, book reviews, business ideas, calendars, catalogs, chronicles, codes, color themes, comic skits, comics, commentaries, confessions, constrained writings, curses, designs, dialogues, dreams, economic commentaries, etymologies, eulogies, examples, exegeses, experiences, explanations, exposés, fairy tales, fake album reviews, fashion critiques, films, filmographies, forewords, formulas, F.A.Q.s, grammars, guides, hagiographies, histories, instructions, interviews, introductions, inventions, jokes, journal entries, legends, lessons, letters, letters to the editor, lists, lists, and more lists, lyrics, magic spells, mantras, manuals, marquees, maxims, memento moris, memories, menus, messages, metacommentaries, metafictions, metaphysics, monologues, morality tales, mottoes, musings, mysteries, mythologies, notes, oaths, observations, oracles, orders, parables, performances, philosophies, phone calls, pitches, plays, plots, poems, polemics, political commentaries, prayers, predictions, products, product histories, projects, propositions, prose poems, provenances, P.S.A.s, puns, reflections, religious commentaries, reminiscences, reports, requirements, revelations, routines, rubrics, ruminations, rules, sayings, scripts, shows, sketches, social commentaries, songs, strategies, studies, tarot readings, tasting notes, theories, tour guides, transcripts, transmissions, trialogues, trial logs, urban legends, utoposcales, visualizations, websites, westerns, wishes, word plays, and word salads. Essentially, it’s a book that’s a composite of me, and the time and place in which it was written.

Hope you enjoy.

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To discover the hidden message on all ten covers, arrange the books as follows: 12345 67890

$6.50 ISBN 978-1-957399-09-6