Thursday, September 29, 2011

"I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard


and what no hand has touched
and what has never occurred to the human mind."

When you read the above...

Do you start thinking up funny responses?

Do you see it as a riddle?

Do you snort in scorn, cynicism, ridicule?

Do you wonder who said it so you can
decide whether to take it seriously or not?

Do you go into a state of wonder?

Do you try to make sense of it?

Do you think it's insane, impossible, irrelevant?

Do you dismiss it without prejudice?

Although it is said in words, do you understand it
with an understanding that defies and transcends words?

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Monday, September 26, 2011

INTERVIEW WITH THE NEUTRINO WHO BROKE THE SPEED OF LIGHT.


Because of certain high-level scientific connections
I have in the world of science (related to my work on
furniture in outer space, apple molecules, etc.), I was
fortunate enough to be contacted by the European Organization
for Nuclear Research to be the first to interview the neutrino
who was recently timed going faster than the speed of light.
Here is a transcript of that interview.

RM: You've been timed going faster than the speed of light.
Congratulations.

NEUTRINO: Yes, thank you. 16 millionths of a second faster
than light. Or is it billionths? Billionths, I believe. In
any case, I just get going and I go. I love to go. That's my
bag.

RM: How did they time you?

N: Stop watch, I imagine. I don't get into that part. I
trust my team.

RM: Over what distance did this occur?

N: From Switzerland to Italy. Through the earth.

RM: They shot you through the earth?

N: Well, if they shot me into space I'd just keep going.

RM: But through the earth, wouldn't you run into rocks
and sticks and lava and things?

N: No. Neutrinos are aloof. We prefer not to associate
with other particles. We bob and weave. If we were at a
party, we'd be the fellow in the corner with his eye on
the door. We're loners. We have a mass of only 10e-68 g.
We don't care what other particles think of us.

RM: Now, I understand you weren't the only neutrino to break
the speed of light.

N: Who the hell told you that?

RM: It was in the papers. There were 16,000 other neutrinos
who did the same thing at the same time you did.

N: Then go interview them. I was the first, that's what
matters. The others were behind me, basically cheering me on.

RM: As you know, you've upset the theory of relativity.

N: It wasn't my intention to upset any theory. Not that I care.
I don't believe in theories. I prefer action, the will to speed.

RM: You've defied the laws of physics.

N: I saw no signs posted. Again, I don't believe--in laws,
theories, signs, feelings. No offense. I am, therefore I go.

RM: Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

N: If you can catch me you can sue me.

RM: Would you like to say anything to Albert Einstein?

N: Sorry, Bub. You had a good run. Time waits for no man. Move
over, Rover, let Neutrino take over. But seriously, Albert,
I couldn't have done it without you.

RM: As you know, you've now made it possible for a person
to go back in time and be their own grandmother.

N: I'm not responsible for people misusing my achievement
for their own gratification. However, if I was going to go
back in time and be somebody else, it wouldn't be my grandmother.

RM: Who would it be?

N: Probably somebody slow for a change. A turtle. Or maybe
a stand-up comedian. I like Carrot Top.

RM: Some scientists believe that antineutrinos and neutrinos
are actually the same particle type. If this is true, it
would make the neutrino the only particle that is its own antiparticle.

N: That's rather personal territory, pal. In any case, I have
to split. I’m having lunch with my agent.

RM: Final word?

N: Take time, every day, to stop and smell the roses. Or at
least take a whiff as you're speeding by.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Everything is not a tool.


Everything is not a teacher
to edify me.

My senses are not
hunters & gatherers.

In other words,
seeing is being.

Everything is not something
to carry
someplace else
and do something with
to get something else
or change something.

Here is a story
that is not finished
& does not make sense
& carries no meaning
beyond itself:

The phone rang.
People & things & places
were making many loud noises outside.
In order to answer the phone,
in order to make sure
the phone was ringing,
before I decided to answer it or not,
I had to close the door.

It is all right
to pause
learning & teaching.

In other words,
stop.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Don't take it personal.


If you don't want to kill anything,
don't start a garden.

You write for money or love. Nothing
worthwhile was ever written for money
nor ever will be. If you don't think so,
you write for money. Or fame, same thing,
cuz if you were famous & poor, it wouldn't
be enough. Write for love, you'll never go
wrong, even if you end up a poor nobody, though
you may go mad unless you're careful.

The only part of Life of Pi I liked
was the island where he was washed up
with the tiger & the ice plant phantasmagoria
& masses of tame meerkats that climbed up
the tree and slept all over the guy
to evade the toxic boiling fish-eating water.

"The cell phone is the devil's masterpiece."
--Bill Cleere

"They name roads after a lot of people."
--Bob Dylan

I read a book about Scientology & it freed me up
to think how naive, evil & insane people can be.
It freed me up in the sense that it makes my
own uncertainties feel like at least they're
mine, not somebody else's. Uncertainties
can be like a bobbing lake under an air mattress
I'm floating around in the sunshine on. Imagine
paying a madman to take you apart & nail the
pieces to his castle walls. It takes a lot of
work to be free enough to relax & make friends
with yourself, your mind, your way, your shadow.

Mystical is normal.

I read not for the thoughts somebody else has written
but for the thoughts I get in response to their thoughts.
Ideas & images & rolling connections. I don't trust
any writer, right off the bat. Why
should I? Before I trust him I've got to know that
he respects himself, respects me, loves humankind, has
an open heart, or if closed at least honest about that.
Isn't insane, violent for fun, infantile, contemptuous, trying
to shock me, waste my time. He or she's gotta know themself,
why they're writing in the first place. Then I'll trust
them & we can have a nice quiet little conversation as I read.

He paced like a man who had had a vision.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Has anybody tried the digital eyeglasses that switch analog TV to digital TV?


I'm somewhat of a backward fella technology-wise, so
I'm late to the digital game.

Because of a fortunate set of odd circumstances,
I am now on the verge of catching up to the 21st century.

I fielded a call at my neighbor's house where I'm
watching the place while they're on a skiing vacation.

The guy (on the phone, not my neighbor) was from the
Bureau of Digital Conversion or something. He wants
to know if I have gotten ready for the switchover to
digital.

As a matter of fact, I had not and was starting
to worry about getting a digital converter box
because it happened a couple years ago and I wondered
if any boxes were left.

"You could do that," the guy, Robert Johnston, I beleve
it was, says. "Or you could purchase digital conversion
eyeglasses, which are a lot cheaper."
($5 as opposed to up to $30 for a box).

I asked and made sure the glasses were not 3D because
3D makes me gaseous.

Mr. Johnston said I was eligible for both the glasses
and the coupons to buy the glasses. He said with the glasses
you just put them on to watch TV, no set up, no wires etc.
The digital conversion system is a part of the glasses
itself, in the frames or glass. I believe he said
the coupons were the same as for the box, which would mean
I would actually MAKE money, which would show up on the
credit card as a refund.

I didn't have my credit card on me, being at my neighbor's,
but my neighbor left his for me in case I needed it for
anything around his place.

So I used his card to get the glasses, figuring he'll be
happy to see he made money off the deal, even though
I'll get the glasses. He's already got satellite TV.

However, now I'm starting to wonder, are the glasses
better than the box?

Also, digital contacts were a dollar more, but
I have a wooden eye and contacts don't stick to the shellac.

He also offered digital chia sea monkeys, which I
demurred on. Furthermore, he warned me to be prepared
because actual real life (non-TV, etc.) is going to go to
digital in the 2020s. I have my doubts about that.

He said to turn the glasses on I would need to watch the
Grandparents Day Parade that will be on Family Channel
next Monday and the lead float would send a code that
would activate the glasses.

It's hard to put into words how much I'm looking forward
to entering the digital world at long last.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

"Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men having rude souls."


--Heraclitus

This reminds me of...

"The minute I stopped arguing, I could begin to see and feel."
--Bill Wilson

At any given moment I am in a state of war or a state of peace.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Thoreau liked to have his conversations


across the pond
(more like a good-sized lake).
You had to yell
at the top of your lungs
to be heard. This
minimized small-talk.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness


(by Rumi)

Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness!
Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.
Praise to that happening, over and over!
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.
The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.
These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
Words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof.

Stumble Upon Toolbar