Wrote this to a very good friend of mine. She responded positively, but mentioned that she had to go eat dinner. I vomited. Here's the scoop:

i wan mak an interes thing.

it wood be perpetual glitch-makin tech.

you'd wear these glassis them look like inuit sun glass

and they'd be glitchey camras

so ereything you seed wood look like glitchy vidyos

and you cud internact wiff it by wearin a gluve that wirelesslee sent message to them glassis

no buttins, you's jus press a finger to palm in ordert selec somefin in your vishuns

and i wan mak this cuz vidyo gmeaz are stale an dumb now.

they need to innerac' whiff real world and distort an mek fun

but i will never mek these fun thing to mek million bullion cuz not with that attitude u won'!

unnerstan?

Hello, dear Sam!

How have you been keeping?  The darker days are nearly upon you and your hemisphere.  Now may be the time to consider the Tarvu religion. I will include a link for you at the posterior of this post (post-post, essentially "post scriptum", but I'm being silly, you see).  You have eaten of the turkey, roots, and gourd: the symbolic final meal before the on-set of hibernation. Be glad of the season!  The harvest has been plentiful.

I found an old poem of yours that I am posting here as well. I had a difficult time considering your implied metaphorical comparison of this pride of un-pride, and the pool of stagnant water left behind in the tread-marks of a forest harvester. Maybe you are inverting the order of reference. The weird palindrome makes me think so: pride; un-pride; stagnant water (un-pride, the world as it is, for better or worse); harvester (human pride). But I liked the inclusion of a religious and occult sensibility, and the confusion of both with pride and un-pride. The midge is collecting blood in an indiscriminate way, as is the plaid-shirted lumberjack.

It may be that you have had difficulty expanding your poems beyond a verse or two. Why are you always trying to be so pithy, anyhow? Can you write something for me that is self-absorbed, long-winded for the sake of words, and just plain fun? I'd like that. Well, that's all for now. Be well!

There is pride in endeavouring

To have no pride at all

A diabolic iloba ida 

Following a fall

So a stagnant pool of water

In uprooted forest’s wake

Will spawn a teeming multitude

For our bloody sake.

http://www.tarvu.com/givil.html

Gentlepeople, I give you the Mars Curoisity Rover:

http://twitter.com/marscuroisity

Become a fan. "Like" it today. Follow it like a twit. I don't give a tweet.

The interweb is just so confusing. There are double-agents posing as mock-double agents everywhere. Duplicity abounds. I don't know what to think about the people who put this page up, for example:

http://www.knowthelies.com/node/8072

Any thoughts? Is this sarcasm? Are human beings really this dumb or are there some clever people who think they are being funny by manipulating people this dumb? So much confusion. My first reaction is to guffaw and loose my honey-nut oaty-o's on the interweb, but afterward I sit baffled and in awe. Narrative threads; narrative threads everywhere!

the news at 5, 5:30, and 6

There are still a few good programmes on the old Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "Ideas" is just such a one. When growing up, Lister Sinclair's golden voice used to seep through our tiny bungalow from the parents' bedroom where Dada lay on the bed listening to his ancient clock-radio. Lister is gone now, but Paul Kennedy does a fine job.  Quirks and Quarks is still on the air with Bob MacDonald hosting with Jay Ingram's voice (they certainly sound similar). You just need to get over every scientist interviewed responding to questions with "So, ...".

Yes, there's life yet in the CBC. The Current is a good show. It aims at hard-hitting journalism and sometimes delivers the punch but also has a humorous side. "Q" has its moments, and Gian is a genuine, empathetic and mild-mannered host. "Morningside" it is not, but what could be?

Just a little ramble on the state of the union through the lens of broadcasting. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, just something from the top of the head, you know. If anyone reading knows of a good show we're missing here (maybe something along the lines of Two New Hours or Gilmore's Albums) Please respond. Oh, and Day Six and The House are also very good. It's astounding that this quality is possible with the Harper Conservatives running the show in Ottawa.

And that's it for the Canadian perspective for this week.

Join us next time, won't you, for a look at the origins of Greenpeace in Canada and what involvement with that organization means to someone today.

witness to an accident

Of an evening, the progeny, the lady, and the tramp all went to a free, out-of-doors concert featuring the burgh's symphony orchestra. It was quite pleasant (with the exception of the swarms of mosquitos down by the river): McDermott sang a few chestnuts; the strange man who wears the colourful blouses, daisy-dukes and pork-pie hat played second baton; the little ones had fun. The place was packed, and finding parking near at hand was impossible, but aside from that and the blood-suckers, it was not a bad outing.

Once the family had all bundled into the car and were safely on the road, the real danger began. They came to a stop at a red light behind a car with British Columbian plates. They remained there for a good part of the succeeding green light as well while the driver ahead sat, immobile. The friendly, one-short-honk was duly applied, and when the driver still didn't move, the tramp, who was chauffeur, pulled out to pass. That, of course, is when the man in front finally moved, changing lanes so he was still ahead, then moving back into the original lane, all without a single signal. At the red light, he stopped about one-and-a-half car lengths from the stop line, so the family passed and pulled up well ahead in the other lane.

"Let some other driver sit waiting behind this weirdo,"  thinks chauffeur-tramp. Then, suddenly, most unadvisedly, the man from British Columbia throws his car into reverse and drives with full acceleration smack into the car behind him.

Yells of angry disbelief rang out, and the family shot out of there, not wishing to become victims of stab wounds that night. Upon arriving home, the tramp phoned non-emergency police to report this strange event. No one else had phoned it in. The erratic behaviour of the man from British Columbia was described. A statement would have to be taken in person since no record of this incident had been reported. The call was ended. Puzzlement tugged at features creating a confused grimace on the face of the reporter. A piggy-wiggy squealed dementedly in the distance.

"But," thought the tramp, "that accident was meant for us...!"

Eateemores

"Daddy," said the little man, "are you 'fraid of Eateemores?"
"Of what, dear?"
"Of Eateemores."
The little man had a serious, probing look in his amber eyes.
"Well now, ah, it's sort of hard to say," replied that big man, confuddled.
"When there was a Eateemore and it was going to PRASH! into the monkey but the duck flied by and stopt it."
"Eateemores?"
"Yes, I'm 'fraid of Eateemores because they fly in the sky and are very big Daddy, and the Eateemores can hit your eye and then it would be put out and hard to see!"
"Ah-ha!" said the big man. "Yes, I am afraid of Eateemores too, but since I can do nothing about them, I try not to worry too much about them."
"You should be scared too, but if you stop the Eateemores it would be very amazing!"
"Look out! Here comes one now!"
"Silly," said the little man, inclining his chin to the fading rays of the sun and waving his arm above his head "there is no Eateemores up here now!"
And with that, they returned to eating their yoghurt.

on crying

First, the details begin to pile up. Sensory information wrinkling the brain, thoughts and impressions yielding still more thoughts and impressions, some got at by means of reason, some intuition. Maybe this is all relevant: trust the mind and believe in yourself; however, at some point a decision has to be made. What action can be taken in response to all this thought? The mind is a juggler performing on a unicycle crossing a high-wire. Practice and a will to achieve have made these giddy heights possible, but who can still the wind? Balance! Trust yourself, trust what you know, but acknowledge that adjustments will be necessary.

Suddenly, all this thinking has confused the action, and unforeseen circumstance has blown in through a hole in the big-top. The mind has become entangled in a web of memory, fear, and broken thought. Things are indistinct: a motley tumbler now struggles to free herself. Where once there was confidence and joy, now vexation and despair.  But the time for her to pick herself up is forever now. When the decision to take action was postponed, it may have been out of fear, laziness, or a simple desire to hold on to a moment, to have time to weigh thought and feeling just a little longer.

In his skewbald doublet and hose, and cock-a-doodle cod-piece, Hamlet's own ghost relays something of this conundrum. Wait and weigh too long at your peril. "Reason will not cling to solution, I will end up lost in confusion". Crying is okay. It's natural. It relieves the tension, and is cathartic. Crying also cleanses the palette of too much thought in too little space and time. Try it some time! The sooner you do, the sooner you can act with reason and relative confidence. I wish that I could cry right now. Come cry with me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wa0c8CD1Jw

walleye

You have a deadline that's moving like a cosine function on the tangent you are off on. There could be minutes left or seconds, right? So you have to move quickly, dress slickly, carry a blade and be sharp. Just grab your hat and travel light.

"Daddy! Alfie needs you to save his fishing rod! It's stuck in a pine tree!"

Immediately the bow snapped, its two splintered ends twirling uselessly in the air, trailing twine, and falling inert on the heath. The arrow hung there from his hand, the point lost from sight in the gorse.
Time's up!

To catch a fish, perchance to eat.

literal skullduggery, sneaking about.

Hello to the words on the page! When we meet it is like pictures in the mind; it is like slipping behind a mask made of smoke and speaking in the voice of a stranger; it is transformative. Thank you words, I am flabbergasted, amused, and terrified. We are trapped inside the fortress of the skull, protected yet besieged. Following the cyphers, the little black blotches that drip down into the cellars of memory, we traverse time inside an invisible cloak woven from the strands of someone else's hair. Don't toss the garment off too quickly, to reveal oneself here is to forfeit knowledge and break the spell. Besides, the path lies marked out before us. All we have to do is follow and all is revealed.

is you is or is you ain't misbehavin'?

We might as well continue posting, dear Earthling readers. Why, stopping would be like admitting defeat. It may be the case that admitting defeat has some virtue, but if one looks around at the state of human affairs today, a realistic approach to life appears no more useful than any other. It is hard to live a life of repressed emotion. The doctors will prescribe pills to bridle the symptoms. These pills have a mellowing effect upon the spring and neap tides of feelings. However, increased anxiety is often a side-effect. The doctors will prescribe pills to rein in the anxiety. Getting up in the morning may become somewhat of a struggle. There is medicine that doesn't come in pill form. It helps to rejuvenate the stultified imagination and return feeling to an otherwise emptying life. Here is an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCQfTNOC5aE

buzzing in the ears

They have asked why "good enough" is not "good enough". They wonder what might be required to make "good enough" an acceptable option. Olympic athletes refuse to accept "good enough" until all possible attempts at something better are made (with the exception of some badminton players). Non-athletes do this too: lawyers, doctors, artists, musicians. Those who rise to the top, find a place in the collective consciousness of an era, a lifetime, a decade, a weekend, all refuse to live with "good enough". Do they not?

Is there always a dangling neuron rebelliously sparking in the brain-stem of a human being, even after some great accomplishment has been achieved, greater heights have been reached, telling the human being that to settle with that accomplishment, however lofty, is to accept "good enough"? Or, if the mountain has been scaled first, or fastest, or without oxygen, or while hopping backward on one foot, why does that same doubtful neuron wonder why it hadn't been done better?

There is room for improvement, and this is a good thing. There is a balance to achieve between improvement and acceptance. So often, attempting improvement is overwhelming and acceptance, at the realization of this fact, receives a powerful lashing from an electrified ganglia. The result of imbalance is a fall. The outcome of a fall is often injury and sometimes death. An injury can be healed, death is inevitable. Healing and growing is better than dying and rotting. Healing and growing are "good enough" and allow a return to balance.

from you tube to yours

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPoK1lryfh4

The above link will lead you to a little piece of the 50s jazz pie, courtesy of Charles Mingus.
Much love,
Zmz

P.S. Jenny, if you happen to read this, look for sumas bignose on the book of faces. She has returned.

a little something

There comes a time in an intimate relationship between two human beings when, well past the honeymoon, and after frustration and doubt have faded to whispered memories on the edge of unconscious minds, time itself begins to surge forward while appearing at each moment standing stock-still. For better or worse, this new era in the two lives hardens them into one sublime existence. Familiarity is said to breed contempt, but complacency is another child of the union. How the relationship decides to nurture its infants in the ensuing period of time becomes its prime concern.
The halting, rushing nature of time is at once astonishing and terrifying, offering boundless possibilities and absolute deadlines. The united beings have achieved a new kind of adulthood, regardless of what has led them here. This is especially so if, regardless of the sexual nature of the people, child rearing is involved.

Mer and Jim have begun to call one another Momma and Daddy. There are more and more moments in their life together that see them in such plumage. They never suspected that they would arrive here, and yet, here they are.

bugs

I like bugs. I miss their easy society in the cold winter months. If I were a bug I would want to be an ant: not for the work-load but for the aesthetics, the look. Male ants, so I've heard, exist only to make larvae with the queen of their colony. I would not like this, shocking as it may seem to any hot blooded human male. I would not miss insect society were I an ant, even a female one. I would long for winter when the work would have to stop (in the higher latitudes at least). But, as a human, at that time of year, I miss them. Is that sadistic?

meandering thoughts revised

The heavens can teach us about things like the space between one thing and another, the distance between our perceptive capabilities and what is. Observation brings new interest in life and inspires thinking. Without thoughtfulness, instincts overwhelm and "what is" loses some of its meanings.

Think of instincts as the mechanics of self-sustenance in the face of impending death.

With death, a new cycle or new part of a cycle for that matter that we once were. It is not all negative, it spurs living things onward.

If a god moves to pick its nose does a universe full of stars come undone? That nagging idea of the Big Bang being just another small atom of something larger.

Sub-creation: Art: making something novel from observable bits and pieces we can hobble together. Creation has happened, or is it always happening? If the latter, then our art is part of it. Still, new things cannot be created... but old things can be reshaped. Can human beings be true creators? Or only breeders and alchemists, a catalyst in the larger, on-going Creation?
The Creation is the forward flow of time, or it creates this flow, or it is the result of this flow....
Both are undeniable to the senses. We are fixed in the flow of Time and Creation but our alchemy or art can allow the miming of stepping outside Time and mortality.

madness

Fellow Earthlings!

Thank you for visiting. The more ruminating I do on what it might be like to be Martian, or just alien to this world, the less I am able to make light of the subject. A seriousness about the search for truth and meaning take over. I am beginning to see the elements of propaganda that have for so long remained hidden from view in the science fiction of the past century. Only with distance does the perspective broaden; yet the heart grows fonder, too. It's a bit of a conundrum. Even the most convincing visual picture (here I am thinking of the media of film) of science fiction relies absolutely upon the strange and wonderful world around us, the same planet some of us long so desperately to escape. This wonderful world includes the human in all its aspects, as well, and the visual picture comes to reflect those who produce it and where it is produced. Hence, the bipedal or humanoid-centric universe depicted in Star Trek and many other imagined galaxies.

The space race between the Americans and Soviets of the mid-nineteen hundreds fuelled a collective imagination that, in turn, further fuelled the space race itself, much like the nuclear reactions that take place inside a star. Eventually though, in the case of both the race and the star, entropy takes over. Like the miner trapped by a cave-in whose body can only reuse its own urine so many times before being poisoned, the system breaks down unless something new is brought in, some source of fresh water discovered.

But now I am reducing everything to the simplest terms: the struggle for survival. Why? In a way this is what the space race was about. Am I over-simplifying? By trying to make blanket statements to deal with the "big picture" I cover up the details that the miner is trying to dig up: the new source of fuel. I am sorry. I am not very good at thinking. Or writing, for that matter.

Now for the descent into confusion and self-doubt, the same old excrement. When will I find the hidden streams that will replenish me?

So, I guess that's it for now. The mind plays tricks, the nebulous shadow-self invades like a force from another world. In a way, this writing, unplanned and meandering is evidence of how I break down from positive, ready to take things on, and inspired. The other self tangles it up. But an attention span is only so long. I will come back to write again. What literary character am I reminded of? It's a Dickensian one: the wealthy aunt of the main character helps to care for a man who is forever writing his autobiography, only to become muddled and depressed by the recurring appearance of a mad royal personage in the tale. It's one of David Copperfield's companions. No, not the illusionist, the literary character. The trick was for him to have meaningful occupation and friends. The devil makes playthings of us in our idleness. Isn't that same Satan of the tales depicted as an alien force that descends from the heavens upon the Earth like the darkness upon the mind?

Don't make war on the strangeness, when it lands its craft. Explore the world with it. Feel the mind expand under the alien springs.

A quick message to let you, the good people, know that Zmz is still operational. It's been a while since words have flowed from these phalanges to the ether. I want you to know that I miss you. I am down but not out. The Earth is our shared space-ship and my attention is drawn to it fully these days.
I am having trouble concentrating, so it is time to be off. Drop me a note sometime, won't you? I will force myself to respond promptly.
Zmz

...on that midnight train to Georgia

Ahoy fellow space cadets,


Thank you for your sympathy regarding the loss of our canine friend. She had a busy and happy life. She got to see this continent's west and best coasts and chase ducks in both Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Now she's dog-paddling those celestial seas between the galaxies.


Other news: another member of the now-defunct super-group "The Maughams" is due to arrive this weekend! That's two months, two visits. 5ad1e must be making waves up there because it appears there has been some planetary re-alignment.
The Mann arrives June 3rd just in time for Pride day.

death

Our dear canine friend, 5ad1e, passed away peacefully yesterday, the twenty-fourth of May, 2012. She was twelve years old. She is missed terribly. There is an empty spot in our hearts and home.
Zmz

equal parts hello?

Things may be taken too seriously. Who can tell? But it is sad that the writing project falls to the wayside. The sadness encourages some part of me to make an end of it, to be final. That kind of thinking is probably due to the sickness. So let us not say goodbye just yet, "but as the French have it, au revoir."

goodbye

I will be going away for a while. Who can know when or if I will ever return? My mind is no longer functioning properly and I am unable to keep up the charade. My illness is becoming me. "We shall have to become philosophers, Mary." No more aesthetes. Enough vanity.

soul fire

We started a post concerning the celebration of Earth Day, but it sort of fizzled out. Maybe we will return to it at some later date. Earth day is for geophysicists and geologists, no? Why does the world need another pseudo-holiday? May-day, Easter, any Spring festival, all these already perform the function Earth day purports to. If we are celebrating the planet with Earth day, make it about the mantle, the crust, the unknown core, the physical nature of the world we have only begun to understand. How is it that life is sustained on this object floating through space? The life celebrates itself with other holidays. Let's make Earth day about the planet, on its own terms.

That was the thrust of it. So now it seems unnecessary to return to it at some later date.

Here is a link to a fantastic reggae contrivance by the master Lee Scratch Perry. Highly recommended listening. Most high. Happy belated 4:20 and rekkid store day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMqs4rPuIAU

the ol' ragtime pianner

He took piano lessons as a child. Through no virtue of his own, he kept them up through puberty. He could slog his way through Scott Joplin's The Chrysanthemum and most of The Entertainer. The Easy Winners was his favourite, but the second and third chunks were a bit difficult. He practiced on a very old piano, possibly a German-made Steinman upright. It was in bad shape. There was a massive fissure running up the wood of the bass harp. Any note below G in the bass clef caused a thundering rumble of distortion. A neat effect, but not one with which to teach a young ear music. That same G, the first one flat of middle C, was forever becoming stuck. The key itself was fine, but the mechanism that returned the hammer from the string after the key was played was broken. Imagine a hot-blooded teenaged male losing his proverbial shit trying to get that note to sound. He knew what the chord was supposed to sound like, at least, the untuned noise he was used to, but the blasted  G was missing!

This would have been an excellent time for some parental guidance: an excellent teaching opportunity. But no, his parents were too busy for music. As his frustration grew, if he was not able on that particular day to see beyond the great injustice of mere nuisance, grow too would the frustration of his father. Frustration causing frustration leading to frustration. Pa needed to come through with a better solution. But he never quite came round to seeing this. Tuning the old beast would have cost a small fortune by their standards. Maybe if father and son had taken it upon themselves to attempt a more cool-headed approach, actually diagnosing the problem and maybe even playing with the mechanics of the machine, there could have been more music and less anger.

smudged and blurred

There is dirt, earth, in my mouth. I have just taken a nasty fall. The texture of the grains of rock and soil, the taste of the particles of feces and rotting vegetable matter all impress themselves upon the mind as unpleasant at first. But this is surely because they are unfamiliar and appear now suddenly, unexpectedly. Olfactory sense is heightened uncannily, and the mind becomes aware of the thousands of scents that make up this particular spring day. It is all too much at once, so observation and meditation have become necessary. The sorting of information and self-diagnosis occur as the adrenal glands spread their super-juices throughout the body. Too soon all that registers though, are the colour orange and the smell of the inside of nostrils. The hot shock of electric pain passes up to my brain from my knees and the palms of my hands. If I look there will be blood. Then the texture of the grit between teeth finds accordance with the gravel sticking into flesh. I believe I can feel the bits of earth with the blood that is seeping around them and out of me even as the taste of the same elements is in my saliva, on my tongue. I am reunited with the world outside as the tenuous line between it and what is inside me is smudged and blurred.

an open letter to my editor

At the risk of using this log as a space to write whatever the whatever I want:

ZCHL GZTNZ, where are you and how do I contact you? I've tried Ouija, but zeds keep appearing, and it would be good to know I'm not talking to a ghost that isn't you.  Are you still in bonnie old England? When again is the bonnie Prince coming through? Oh, and thank you for the comments, I am now responding!

I recently considered converting to Judaism and thought I'd ask you if I could get in touch with your bro. for moral support. I lack contact info, you see? Since then I've returned to my belief that all organized human religions are bunk and've decided to remain profoundly profane. Still, foreskin art could be something worth exploring, so perhaps  an open mind to the old chestnuts of others is worth maintaining.

There is almost certainly another slightly less upsetting reason I'm trying to reach out to you, but it escapes my memory at the moment.
Gotta go! Wee ones and all! We'll try again later, maybe?
Zmz

post title

Quarter of an hour to twenty-two hundred hours Central North American time. Things seem to be happening later and later in the day. The studio is sort of off limits right now. It's a work night, a week night. There are so many drawings, scribblings and daubings to make, or even just consider making, that making the early rise of oh-five-hundred and thirty is likely to be difficult if even a toe is set across the threshold. A visit to the martian hop shall have to suffice.

Every joint of this corporeal shell is moaning with dull pain. I think it is bed-time. Thank you for visiting. Sweet dreams.
Z.

everybody hurts, and other gems to fuel the warped engines of the human psyche.

"When you feel like letting go, hold on."

"Everybody hurts, take comfort in your friends."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pudOFG5X6uA 

"They hung a sign up in our town/ If you live it up you won't live it down."

"But it's so hard to dance that way when it's cold and there's no music."

"Sometimes there's nothing left to do, but you got to hold on."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPnOEiehONQ

"I still don't belong to anyone/ I am mine."

"I am hated for loving/ I am haunted for wanting."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GTkyE6VyLs

"Nice day for a sulk." Why not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub2Gk0C6Vcw

"These days I seem to think a lot about the things that I forgot to do/ And all the times I had the chance to."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1N8GtDkYfQ

"I sit and watch as tears go by."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhPPJ5dolxU

freedom fighter series?

The time machine took us back to the month of February. Tuned to a different year, we could go back to visit one of the great jazz-people before he slipped out of this world. Not Sun-Ra this time, but, along with Art Tatum, one of the greatest pianists of the past century: Thelonious Monk. "Blue Sphere", give it a spin. If you're feeling slightly more off-kilter today, try "Nutty". Embrace the strangeness of being alive, being human and feeling alone. Put on a hat with an absurdly stingy brim, wacky sunglasses and stroll the avenue. When the martians do finally arrive, they'll know who to talk to.

Laura Peek: First show of 2012

Laura Peek: First show of 2012: Happy new year, everyone. I have a cold but hopefully that means I'm just getting all the illnesses of 2012 out of the way in one dose, righ...

Well planet hoppers, this is how information gets moved around in these times. In snippets, irrespective of the laws of language. The "google plus" experience didn't work out when I tried to recommend my ex-band mate's show belatedly. It's getting so hard to remember all my fake names. Really, I just want to subscribe to her blog, but it doesn't seem very easy to build webs in the internet. Maybe the virtual world is running out of space. Virtual space is reliant upon physical factors, after all. There have to be enough servers and enough surfers to create and cater to the surges and swells. Laura Peek turned me on to Space Age Pop, something for which I will be forever grateful. She made making music and performing in a band a probability, not just a possibility. She's the second red-head I had a thing for, though the thing had to be kept under wraps, and was. It's okay, everyone has a thing for her at some point. It's as inevitable as the past.
That's all I have time to jot right now. She sings like a simile set free.

reunions

Dear semi-independent consciousnesses (hereafter "Nessies") of Earth. Why are we not better acquainted? Why have I only a single grainy photo of your Pleiseosaurian beauty to remember you by? You are so mysterious, even to yourselves, it seems, living submerged in the deepest oceans of this world all your lives. But then, when you do make an appearance, it is all the more wonderful. Thank you for the congratulatory notes you have recently sent the way of the martian hop. The new baby Sapiens is thriving. She eats, she poops, she sleeps, and in her spare time reigns as Miss Universe. That is quite the schedule for one so young!

It is good to be alive. I highly recommend it. This is not meant as a slight against rocks. I never once said they were not alive in some way. Time is different for particles of stuff that have no central nervous system. But without rocks, what would the sustaining waters of the Nessies flow over? What would crash into the planet from the depths of space, heralding change? 

Thank you for the visit. It was so good to be reunited, however briefly. Inspiration comes in many forms and you are an inspiration to me. Los lobos, "yah tebe lyooblyoo". Guten tag. Ich liebe dich.

http://www.gennet.org/facts/nessie.html

Zmz

rebirth

Well, well, well. Where to begin? There is a six-day-old human creature in our care. Once an arch-peace-pope of the ice-flower people on a small comet we will one day come to know as Cubit, she has been born again in spirit in this globe like a bodhisattva of old. All it took was life-times of meditation and some readily accessible Earthling DNA. We are so happy to have such a being in our midst. Now our hearts and our house are full.

Or perhaps mammalian reproduction here on Earth is miraculous enough all on its own.

It was nice to receive a few new comments from some long-lost subscribers. A link, and then it's off to bed.
This time it's about Christian Marclay: collage, both sonic and physical, maker extraordinaire.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/03/12/120312fa_fact_zalewski?currentPage=1

Good night.
Zmz Gbzn

whoops!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, dogs, cats, roaches and other assorted creatures, we salute you.
There hasn't been very much going on at the martian hop recently. Sorry. Working to pay the bills. Living to work, and not quite working to live. Free time is rare and seems to be split between family, episodes of Futurama, Mario-cart and drawing. Live free or die.
Zmz

Here's Michael Stipe and R.E.M.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icGOLDJv08c

Barsoooooooooooooooom!

Hello world. The movie adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter character has come to the big screen at last. Schlocky pulp! We just watched the trailer for the film. Unfortunately there appear to be a lot of big boring battle scenes. Blame the influence of Peter Jackson's Lord of the [Potatoes]. But the Barsoomian creatures look fantastic! Rather, they look like a fantasy made palpable. Megan Fox, she ought to be in it. The bodacious princesses need to be feisty and unpredictable and, well, slutty. This is a must see, if only to pigeon-hole for not being the-good-kind-of-bad enough. Can't wait!
Links? In a web? That not make sense.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/john_carter/

Oh, to cap it all off, the lead role is played by a man named Kitsch.
Zmz

I'll ride that last train to heaven on rails of solid gold.

The term "spacey" is a funny one. It calls to mind the hypnotic, glazed stare of eyes that are attached to a brain in stasis. But having the ability to quiet the brain can be a very good thing. It's nice to shut off everything but life-support now and then and just drift through space. It takes some practice to get used to calming the brain. That organ is always firing off messages, which is habit forming. Taking the time to observe those messages and decide if they are useful or necessary can help with quieting: achieving spacey-ness.

What direction are we headed with this? Floating through space is sort of a directionless thing. It feels that way, anyhow. The distances are so vast. But does "spacey" require you to be unmoored? A celestial hobo? Even comets have paths determined by grave forces. No one thing is entirely unaffected by any other thing in the matrices of the uni- or multi-verse. Whatever THIS is. Matter is a matter of relationships, seen and unseen.

Celestial hoboes. I hope that the first non-Earthling visitors are these guys and gals. It would beat the pantaloons off any invading forces of imperialist swash-bucklers. The celestial hoboes are in the holy texts of many Earth religions. They are always shunned, misunderstood. The beings who visit Lot in the Old Testicle have a terrifying mystery about them. Certainly they stood seven feet tall hunched over, had beautiful, smooth slightly metallic-green skin and spacey ultra-violet eyes. And they must have sung in strange and beautiful harmonies of the wonder of a mind and spirit open to emptiness. Read "God's messengers" as "messengers from the heavens". They bring you peace, and love. Let them rest a bit in your hay-loft. Don't tell the authorities: the authorities do not enjoy chaos as a philosophy, only as a means to further their power. Celestial hoboes are only concerned with... the truth.

"joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea..."

Deadlimits, no, time-lines, no, wait, time limits. Yes. Life is one great big arbitrary time limit composed of a near infinite number of smaller arbitrary time limits for a huge variety of things we might do or have done.
There is a very limited period of time in which to write this post, but the end could come at any moment. So much depends on a great many factors that are entirely beyond control. We wait.

Wait? No, we write. We're up for the challenge. Why not? It's good practice for living. There may be no tomorrow; or there may be a tomorrow but "there will never be another tonight". Thank you to Canadian "Rock icon" Bryan Adams for the quote. Although the perpetually be-pimpled and pubescent songster is not the first place one would ordinarily turn for wisdom, sometimes how you look at a thing makes worlds of difference. Today we focused on the idea that today is the only one of its kind, never to be repeated, completely original. There may be days that are similar, but... well, you know. Time flows in the one direction for us, as far as we know. So, good or bad, there is hope in this thought. If today is absolutely miserable, it is only one day. If it is fantabulous, it becomes even more incredible when the realization of its unique wonderfantabulousness gets the consideration it deserves. "...Joy to you and me". Goodbye.

music of the spheres

Just a quick note before entering the chamber for rejuvenation. The tube was on and showing a programme about planets and the earthling occupation of searching for hospitable climes on other worlds. The soundtrack was stirring, strange, orchestral, ambient, and a whole lot of other great things. Where do we find music like this? The answer came from the tube as well. A documentary about Scott Walker and his music. Wild stuff. And the thing was produced by a guy named David Bowie. Neat-o.
Zmz

100

Happy belated cent-notary, the martian hop!
I am making you a mixed album of songs about outer space, rockets and celestial bodies in celebration of a long and storied existence. Most, if not all of these songs will be written and performed by others. But they'll mean something special, being compiled by the martian hop staff. Doubtless, there will be something from the Flaming Lips' soundtrack "Christmas on Mars". David Bowie will probably sing about the spiders, but there's a chance the Space Oddity will make the cut too. That wacky old Sun Ra may appear as well. Any suggestions from "Shane" (read: "humanity at large") are more than welcome.

In other news, our writer has withdrawn its two-weeks notice. There will be sovereigns in the coffers for the little Dickens yet. The family will eat.

Time to go spacey.
Zmz

on a personal note

The martian hop has never been too concerned with the prospect of attracting a large audience. It would be content with a few lurkers producing a discussion here or there, or perhaps sharing an Earth recipe now and then. As it stands though, the numbers suggest we have a readership of two: our writer/editor and a being we will call "Shane" to respect his/her anonymity.

What this means, Shane, is that nobody cares but you. Were you a character in the Pentateuch, your lot would be you're Lot. Don't look back in anger. Onward, to the promised land: the future! But it would be nice if a fornicator, tax-evader, or uncle-fucker joined you in the task of muddling through. There is so much of humanity and its cultures to understand. Variety is the spice and Earth has pillars of the stuff.

Our writer recently gave its two weeks notice. It has no other prospects. Its family cannot afford it to be unemployed for very long, with a new baby on the way. Hopefully it will reconsider quitting. But the atmosphere at work is a bit toxic and our writer has a fairly weak constitution. What else will it do? The martian hop can barely scrape together enough cash for a gum-ball. Human culture is expensive.

Well Shane, that's about it from here for now. How are your Earth explorations going? When you're next in the vicinity, stop in at the 'hop. There's a great radio station we've been listening to avidly. CJNU, 107.9 FM nostalgia radio, "where everything old is new again". You can find them on the web. Thank you and good night.

Le Sun Ra and His Arkestra

Some time ago, probably a number of rotations around our star now, I purchased an interesting vinyl album. The album art consists of a naive lithographic print in black and yellow depicting hands at work making music and musical instruments out of flames and celestial objects. The cover promises "SUPER-SONIC JAZZ" on 180 gram vinyl, featuring John Gilmore on tenor sax and Julian Priester on trombone.
Here is a quotation from the back cover:

POINTS ON THE SPACE AGE


This is the music of greater transition
To the invisible irresistible space age.
The music of the past will be just as tiny in the world of the future.
As earth itself is in the vast reach of outer space.
Outer space is big and real and compelling
And the music of the future is already developed
But the minds of the people of earth must be prepared to accept it.
The isolated earth age is finished
And all the music which represents only the past
Is for museums of the past and not for
The moving panorama of the outer spacite program.

THE SPACE AGE CANNOT BE AVOIDED


The prophets of the past belong to the past,
The space prophets of the greater future
Belong to the greater future.

The greater future is the age of the Space Prophet,
The scientific airy-minded second-man:
The prince of the power of the air.
The air is music.
The music is power.
The power of the past was its music.
The greater power of the future greater
Greater music is art,
Is its greater music:
Art is the foundation of any living culture.
Living culture is skilled culture
Skilled dutifulness, aim and care
And love of beauty is the only way to produce art.

Skilled culture is the new weapon of nations,
The new measure of determination as to whether a nation
Is ready to be a greater nation is art.
A nation without art is a nation without a lifeline.
Art is the lifeline because art is the airy concept
Of greater living. It is the airy foundation of the airy
Kingdom of the future.
Tomorrow Beyond Tomorrow is the greater kingdom,
THE KINGDOM OF THE SPACE AGE....

End quotation. There's a lot of promise in all this! I've heard tell that Sun Ra was right way the heck out there. This album is comprised of some fine jazz compositions, some very talented musicians; however it is only a primer for the Sun Ra to come. "Portrait of the Living Sky" is the track that approached the hoop-lah of the musings from the cover notes. Still, a nice bit of improvisational jazz straight out of the windy city, and highly recommended listening. Romantic-like for Valentine's time.

dreams and memories

Some people are going to miss you when you're gone, but then they will be gone too. The planet Earth might remember you, but as a part of itself: the carbon and hydrogen that took shape and walked its surface for a short time. The bits and pieces of dead you will be recycled.  You don't need to look to the sky to see how inconsequential you are. The planet itself is sufficient. It does remember, after a fashion, like a vinyl record remembers. It records: broken pottery, footprints, cockroaches trapped in amber for millions of years. These memories are physical, like the grooves the needle passes through while perfectly re-playing a performance of Beethoven's ninth symphony. Can our memories be so faithful?

I have bought myself a medicine hat. I am trying to get to know the Great Spirit. If our ethereal memory has purpose, the Spirit is where that purpose resides.

comments are most welcome

People of virtual Earth, your comments are welcome here at the martian hop. We are, after all, studying the way in which information is exchanged on your planet. Please, leave a suggestion of a good book to read, or a gallery to visit, or a "web-page" to peruse. Come as you are, as yourself, or as someone else. Assume an identity. Make a fool of yourself, we won't judge you. We long for contact, discourse, discussion. It's a lonely life adrift in space without someone to talk to!

yesterday, after the pep rally, Jim saw Johnny and Diane swapping spit under the bleachers.

Dear readers,
You are a special bunch. Did you know that? You are an elite group of individuals amid a galaxy of darkness. So, buck up, won't you? Go forth and pour the lustre of your eyes on that galaxy. Make its stars shine brighter with your discovery of them. Reverberate with the frequencies of life and being and revel in the mystery.

At times it is hard to live life as it is. There are so many distractions, and human beings seem to be so preoccupied with convincing themselves that life is not as it is. But that is whence the great art of the species comes. Escaping from the unrelenting harshness of reality is a skill you can learn, and a gift you can give. Never stop learning, and give freely, friends.
Zmz

independence

Today the martian hop has severed its ties to a certain "social networking" inter-web page. Subscription rates were down, anyhow. Now, though new readership is going to be harder to attract without the assistance of such truly miraculous technology, we at the hop believe there will be much more time to provide meditative thoughts on life, science, art and alien beings now that we are doing without.

driving and music

I crashed our Earth rover. Perhaps if it had been equipped with six wheels rather than four, this could have been avoided. Alas, Earth rovers generally only have four wheels, unless they are transport units. Never fear, there were no injuries to any living creatures, just an expensive injury to the little blue automobile that/which, nonetheless, is still operable.

What else is in the news? Waves, signals. While producing decals for various other mass-produced pleasure-vehicles at my work-place, I tuned in to a far-out station. The same 50 hard-rock songs by the likes of Van Halen and Guns 'n' Roses become very dreary after a short while, let alone six months, on the job. Most were dreary to begin with. Yet, the station favoured by my Earthly co-workers tends to be the one that plays these dirges. Experimenting with the tuning dial in hopes of finding "K100: Home of the Blues" I discovered that the Blues are once again and appropriately homeless in this icy town. However, meteorological events have brought us "100.7: Breeze FM" to fill the empty glasses of bourbon, scotch and beer.

The Blues have given way to schizophrenic optimism. To paraphrase: "...playing the misses of the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and Naughts". BUT you know what? It was amazing. There was so much variety, and all of it up-beat, dorky, weird, optimistic, "refreshing"! There were Polkas; there was Space Aged Pop aplenty; Bryan Adams and Bruce Cockburn were there. Il Divo showed up with Toni Braxton and wrecked the place; Rod Stewart put in an appearance with a lounge number. Nana Mouskouri warbled about undying affection. Old country numbers? CHECK! That Led Zeppelin song they over-play on the old station- not the one about the stairway, the other one about "big-legged women" not having souls- well, I never have to listen to it again. I don't have to hear a repeated song ever again, and that's the way it should be in the 21st century. So much music has been produced by human beings since sound-recording was made possible. Why can't we tune in and hear a little bit of everything?

A small update is in order. In attempting to tune in this morning to this new favourite of mine, I inadvertently discovered another fantastic radio station located at 107 on the FM dial. Nostalgia radio. Along with the Breeze, there is now enough music to keep seniors in Viagra for millennia! How I'd been missing the crackle and hiss of analog. I was stiff for over an hour last night.