The Diamond Island

Whatever has been going on since I started down this creative procedure it has been going about its business hidden from conscious view. I haven’t been immediately aware of much more than “something” is happening, and so I’ve waited for the next step to appear and indicate whether I might join in with a conscious intent of any kind.

“Still waters run deep,” said my friend Kimaroo recently. Oh yeah, that’s right! I forget these things, whether its concerning people or matters of psychic complexity.

Then, an eruption. Or rather, an image of molten liquid in motion as if it were magma spilling out of the earth. And yet, transition into a process more amenable to human interaction: A foundry.

I live in the area of the country that is known as “the foundry” after all. Funny that something I take as a negative about the place I live should suddenly take on a very vital and important force of life!

I watch the opening sequence of the 1976 adventure yarn At The Earth’s Core and then it strikes me that this is exactly what is happening. Strange primordial powers deftly transformed by a sleight of hand into a process familiar to human endeavor. Though still fantastical given that a fantasy craft is being built out of this process, incredibly.

When I started I was composing a crystal matrices to bring together the elements and intentions I would need. Next I revealed the components and blueprints I would use (I’ve found others since then). I’ve been working on transpersonal narratives necessary to my journey. Molds that will serve to form the parts I will use to build the finished craft. And now, we are at the foundry.

I search for and find a diagram that shows me how it all works on a mundane but necessary external level. The elements are brought together into various furnaces and other mechanisms that turn the elements into the compounds that will make up the parts. Moving from lowest to highest, from the Blues up.

The central image of the molten liquids is where it all comes together—the crucible and cauldron of utmost hazard and intense energy directed towards the formation of psychic parts. Sparks fly, liquid fire falls to the ground in sizzling droplets. I am witness to a process inside myself of great childhood power.

The parts, cooled and cleaned then go to a place of manufacture. Industry is a word that has to do with women’s work. It may be directed towards mostly destructive, accumulative ends—yet the hands that strike the anvil and thread the wire are borrowing the true form of crafting: Introspection. Creating substance out of thought and from that substance, goods.

I dreamt of a UFO being sighted in a way that was also recognition of a form to be. Input from the dream state, cooperation from the unconscious.

I come across a video of The Bamboo Saucer, a film that in a way is about earthlings struggling to understand a UFO and direct its use towards peaceful means. This is, in a sense, a training manual and familiarity exercise to show me that I have been studying up for this since I was young.

K and I watch GalaxyQuest, and it dawns on me this is also a relevant experience of understanding. Of knowing that what you imagine is real, while also recognizing that it is absurd and that life is filled with terrible changes into new forms of consciousness from which life emerges, better than before.

I’m coming to an understanding of the tremendous forces at work within me, of me choosing to become part of this process and behold a beautiful, mysterious Karavos revealed to me.

Her name is coming to me.

No sooner have I witnessed the spectacular display of magnificent enlightenment that is smarter than the average bear then I’m drawn into watching videos of erupting lava. Unbelievably hot material charged by the heat of the earth and forced onto the surface. Lambent orange-yellow creation and destruction that is dangerous, hypnotic, and moving on a deep level.

The forces of our central being called forth to the range of our consciousness by the awakening sound of the noise—noise—noise!

It is an actual external event we behold with our senses and contemplate with our innermost thoughts. We are reminded of when it is an internal event, our vast panorama of experience widened and enriched by the forces inside ourselves.

Sometimes, forces we did not expect demolish towns we built for ourselves. At other times we are fortunate to be removed enough from the process to have a reasonable level of safety, but are close enough to allow the magnitude of the event to move us.

This eruption of energy from the deeper levels of our existence brings new land, full of delicious minerals for the plant life that inevitably follows. It is true we need the greatness inside to come out and renew our conscious life.

It occurs to me that while there is a certain impersonal fate to the catastrophe of an eruption in the external world, there may be a meaningful connection to the volcanic activity in our psyche. There is a story, a drama hidden in the seemingly inscrutable mystery of how we came to be experience this eruption, however we find ourselves participating in it.

The world hears the call and responds, dancing. There is movement and heat, and the flush of release and timeless joy.

And what is our part in that?

Pick out some movies that use eruptions to drive the situation such as Dante’s Peak, or resolve it: like One Million Years BC. We are forced to adapt and respond to what has come forth as a result of the call.

The vuvuzellas have been calling all this time. The difference is that someone heard it.

They look closer at what is happening, they are alert to the change in themselves. The journey to widen their small worldview has begun. Kaboom.

I admit, does one really want to be around when the ultimate volcano finishes off all the dinosaurs? At least in the psychic adventure, all that was no longer needed or had become a wasteland of inauthentic life gets destroyed. Blown away.

It’s time to know you live, so that the world may live and be renewed. Hear the call; accept the eruption that is the response.

Yet always there are still those lost souls who need to experience the call through others. They have wandered too far seeking the dew from faraway flowers in shadowed glens.

Yogi Bear is a generally decent being. Smarter than the average bear, he hunts the elusive picnic basket while dodging the romantic inclinations of Cindy Bear. The Ranger does his best to keep Yogi (a yogi? A teacher?) within the confines of general bear existence without havoc ensuing to either the tourists (voyeurs?) or the picnic baskets (containers of food—life—bliss?).

Kind of a standard cartoon tension you find from Hanna Barbara outfits. Well sometimes things get turned upside down and all havoc breaks loose. That’s kind of what happens in the old early-eighties movie Yogi’s First Christmas.

After those killer bees woke me up to the vuvuzella phenomenon and dialed me in before I missed the train completely, I started getting the shakes one day. You know, patrolling the perimeters of the neutral zone for invaders from butt-town who don’t like to get down.

Hey! That’s right, wasn’t there this movie with Yogi Bear in it I actually liked? Sensor sweep is ON, Babykins. Oh yeah there it is coordinates ready to beam aboard for ducats transfer. Hey, cheap considering the civilization one is poring over.

So in a nutshell, what is that dang show about?

It’s winter at the Jellystone Ski Lodge. Yogi Bear and his compatriot Boo-Boo are fast asleep in hibernation land, so the Ranger is looking for some well-deserved (he thinks) rest. When the bears are down and out for the winter, he gets his summer vacation so to speak.

Special guest stars include various characters from other cartoons. Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy, Snagglepuss, and Huckleberry Hound. Besides offering a number of views on events in the movie, they also double as generic extras in every scene requiring “people”.

Their presence is to ensure that this is a memorable and fun holiday at the lodge. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with such a festive and interesting bunch? Who wouldn’t sympathize with them and their friendly outlook?

Only, the manager of the ski lodge says there’s trouble! The owner of the ski lodge, a Mrs. Throckmorton, is coming to inspect the premises and make a decision as to whether or not to close the lodge permanently. See, there have been all these strange happenings driving visitors away…

Chances are, unless the staff puts on a grand show of all grand shows the lodge is finished! Because while the Ranger is good at dealing with Yogi Bear, he is generally poor at just about everything else. The manager is really just a satellite extension of the Ranger, representing “the suits” behind administration.

But wait, there’s more!

There’s a mean old hermit who hates Christmas and all them “do-gooder city folk” ruining his solitude with their crummy good cheer. Well, this time, he’s decided he’s had enough and is going to go Nuclear Grinch on all their big behinds.

Although, he doesn’t have any elaborate plan other than ruin or destroy stuff. Which is actually kind of funny even though if he’d pulled any of it off people would have gotten hurt or killed.

Extra bonus!

Mrs. Throckmorton’s nephew is a spoiled rotten little brat who hates everyone and especially hates Christmas. He decides to make everyone pay by makin’ mischief. Oh! Who could it be pulling these pranks on us nice cartoon characters?

The little brat eventually hooks up with the hermit and they join forces to make this the worst Christmas ever. After a song where they sing about their mutual hate of Christmas and the horrible things they will do, of course.

Good times.

Looks like the lodge is toast. Not only that, but the good guys are going to work their little rumps off trying to make a good impression, and when they fail will probably think it was all their fault for not trying hard enough!

Unfortunately for the bad guys, Yogi Bear hears Christmas singing and wakes up. He decides to find out what the noise—noise—noise is all about and leaves his cave. Boo-Boo has to keep an eye on him of course, and follows Yogi through the secret cave tunnel that leads RIGHT TO THE DAMN LODGE!

Okay, we are in weirdo land here folks. The Ranger finds all his powers useless during the winter. Yogi declares his intention to see what this Christmas thing is all about, and there’s not a thing Ranger can do but gnash his teeth while the manager panics. A bear on the loose is clearly much worse for the lodge’s prospects than all the vandalism and near-fatal accidents going on.

The guest stars are, of course, delighted to see their friend in a holiday special and support him fully. Yogi then proceeds to use his magic powers of effortless compassion and easy going slack to foil every damn plot by the bad guys by sheer dumb luck.

Every. Dang. Time.

Mrs. Throckmorton is immediately impressed by Yogi Bear and makes sure he is promoted each time he does something amazing. I mean, with a ski lodge with Yogi Bear protecting it from all danger and making everyone smile, who wouldn’t be impressed?

Somewhere off screen the owner must be seeing dollar signs, but from what I can tell she is just really excited that there is this awesome bear who fixes everything and is super polite and friendly while he does it.

Oh yeah and Cindy Bear gets wind of Yogi being up and decides to pursue him despite the need for her beauty sleep! Mistletoe and a music number showing Cindy at her most alluring, hoo boy.

Will Yogi manage to stay awake long enough to see Santa Claus? How will our two villains make out on Christmas Day? Will the lodge be saved instead of sold down the river for an oil refinery or strip mall? I’m pretty sure you can guess the answer to these important questions.

Watching this old show, I’m struck by how wholesome the story is. Ever since dark realism infected the popular entertainment feed trough, it’s been difficult to find any shows that dare to tell a story where things work out like gangbusters and pull it off. It all comes down to stance and technique, folks.

Yogi Bear rides the luck plane on nothing but good-hearted excitement and optimistic curiosity. This is the true spirit of adventure folks; watch a master at work. We’re all in need of this kind of energy awakening in ourselves to see and do things that have never been done.

All the other characters are driven by immediate, real world needs–responsibility of one form or another and the fear of rules not being maintained or of not doing one’s duty. The villains operate from a more selfish and dissociated form of behavior; sabotage of a system in which they feel cut off from.

Along comes Yogi Bear with his evergreen heart chakra glowing with warmth in the heart of winter. He hears the noise—noise—noise and is affected. Do we hear and are we affected?

The vuvuzellas are calling, even in the darkest night of Xmas Not.

The recent nuclear catastrophe unfolding in Japan right now brings me back to the time of the Japanese ghosts crying out to me. This comes at a moment when I am releasing myself of grieving for another dear friend.

I recently watched an old sixties movie called Crack In The World, a film I’d seen as a very young child and then later as a college punk. A dying scientist tries to tap the molten interior of earth to create a source of energy and minerals for industrial purposes, under the guise of “helping humanity”. Instead, he initiates a rapidly spreading crack in the crust of the earth that threatens to split the planet in two.

It strikes me as prophetic how movies such as this one, or Godzilla, warned us decades ago of the dangers of striving for Atlantean power beyond our wisdom as a species to use. Do the scientists who are possessed by satanic rationalism, or the government figures that puppet dance the industrial aristocracy’s interests ever get the message?

Long presaged in our dreams and made manifest in a work of cinema to show us the intention of the unconscious in response to the mindless savagery of our owners. A behemoth from the depths or perhaps the earth-shaking birth of a second moon grant us a glimpse of the suffering yet to rise from the depths of our own ignorance.

It’s all a moot point now. The industrial age is coming to an end and there’s not enough uranium or money to keep the madness going any longer. As the whole farce decays into rust, the big question is how many more accidents, how much more contamination before the nuclear energy dead-end goes the way of the Betamax?

The movies were right. Add a dose of humor, the enthusiasm of a child, or heroic sacrifice on the side of life and we might survive ourselves long enough for the super-predator to let us live to die another day. Maybe the point of it all was not to succeed, but to get to the next rest stop by doing whatever it took to keep on holding on.

Disasters force us to look at ourselves honestly, require that we confront the shadows we have pretended live in others. As I burn a stick of incense and say a prayer of grace for my departed friend Yoshie Izumi, I also look my own gruesome shadow in the eye with compassion.

Thank the living spirit for my stupidity! There may yet be hope.

I’ve gone on about the Count before, and it’s no secret that I admire what that undead dude does for the sake of civilization. This time, I’m going to go way out there and let people know what I’m all about.

There’s this DVD that came out, known by the illustrious title of Every Other Day Is Halloween. Basically, the changeable and fantastically talented core of which Count Gore is but one manifestation—near as I can tell an ordinary human being known as Dick Dyszel—is admitting the passage of time in order to let his story be told.

The movie on this disc tells the story of how Mr. Dyszel found himself a central figure in a local broadcast station, playing several inspired characters, before the forces of mediacrity moved in and demanded tribute in the form of the bottom line.

Along the way, you see how Mr. Dyszel inspired people with his individual and honest outlook, as personified by the characters he played and the shows he hosted—Bozo the Clown, Captain 20, and Count Gore De Vol.

Certainly, there are other folks behind the scenes who contributed to this outburst of creative depiction on local programming. And the spirit of the seventies no doubt played a part in what locals in the Washington DC area remember fondly as “better times”.

Peak times to be sure, and total respect to the unsung efforts of those who get things done, but it always starts with an individual carrying a vision, or a talent, or a way of existing in space-time that shows us what we have lost.  How to adjust our course and return to ourselves.  The true genius constellates those talents and circumstances necessary for raising our consciousness.

So what experience do you get when you buy into this examination of an inspired man’s exploration of himself for the betterment of the community?  Quite a lot, actually.  Though, with any localized phenomenon, there are going to be experiences that only those who lived through it will get.

However!  Keep in mind that the treasures waiting to be discovered are in and of themselves examples of the finest art and of inestimable value to those who seek insight.  Surprises and secrets await those who quest with an open heart, who can hear what has gone before and dare to recreate what may yet be again.

The cover itself is an enigma easily dismissed as an attempt to downplay the contents—Count Gore presenting a can of steaming offal and garbage, while caricatures of other horror hosts float around the vapors with comical expressions. Horror hosts have often hidden behind a veil of humor in order to make their performance less threatening and more acceptable to societal antibodies.  This is activism at the base—always speak in the terms familiar with the audience you find yourself before on any given show.

Look more closely though, past the sadness that is self-depreciation and see the truth behind the images. One has only to know that in many fairy tales it is the worthless thing—the junk—that one finds the most important things of all.

If the hosts are masked in humor, one has only to know that we the audience are always the biggest joke of all.  In that realization there is humanity and redemption—the host always throws us the viewer back upon ourselves to realize the awesome horror and painful glory of being alive.

Opening the case, one cracks open a casket of horrors, yet also proclaims that they live! Passing beyond the threshold, one finds a Channel 20 Club card amongst the expected insert and disc. Yes, there is something of the child in all of us who desire to belong to wonders great and beautiful.  In the local DC area programming of Channel 20, such cards were a visible sign of divine power and a reassurance that magic was abundant.

That the coprorate centers of power regularly co-op such toys of civilized play to encourage “loyalty” to mechanized food outlets is proof of their inherent inventiveness.  Artists, entertainers, and magicians all know the way to reclaim such treats, for is not the card part of the trickery that conceals the true magic in the mind? Beyond a doubt, Captain 20 knew the card trick to remind us how such small things matter.

The disc itself contains the movie, and a veritable infectious fungal colony of extras.  Most of these will be of easiest value to those who remember. Yet pay attention and you will see how improvisational television programs work. How character and setting contribute to situation even in a fluid dynamic such as a studio for viewers.

Variety acts thrive on this sort of transformation—commercials, contests and cartoon blocks are mere forms to be molded and rearranged at will.  Green muppet mutants, friendly adults dispensing worthy advice from the heart, or showing manga style programs way before the mainstream caught on—these are the stuff of which legends are made manifest.  Do we not save the world as audience when we remember ourselves, or as performer when we remind others with our smoke and mirrors of the human spirit?

The movie itself contains a story of an intrepid entertainer’s journey from rough ore to final realization.  What strikes me most is how grounded and ordinary Mr. Dyszel appears. One can almost see the grandiose and unstoppable force of his shadow as personified by Count Gore De Vol lurking in the background.

Is that not the supreme mystery and absurd irony of our times?  That only in the nicest and most unassuming of men could a creative force arise to spark the flames of a thousand and one hearts?

When one is confronted with the simplicity and utter banality of a sock puppet wearing a chef’s hat speaking kitchen wisdom to us with the utmost sincerity, do we not believe?  It speaks volumes for the depths of our own souls, whether we respond with kindness and smiles or turn away in revulsion.

Pity those who see only the surface and not the invention of a lone soul progressing his art beyond a mere tool.  They are the unfortunates consigned to make programming decisions from a vast distance.

Another key point worth noting is how the story progresses into the horror host phenomenon.  This is where Mr. Dyszel fumble-foots into a trove of glittering gemstones and becomes part of a signifier for a deeply relevant art form’s transmutation.

Exiled from mainstream television, only to return and finally be banished again, Mr. Dyszel would seem too nice to survive such a crushing blow as the loss of all he held dear—the beloved figurehead of a local television station yanked from the stage, how contemptable!   Nevertheless, Mr. Dyszel continued his exploration and found in himself the ability to manifest studio in a backpack.

As a result, Count Gore spread his creative power into the Internet, and now no longer needs the station to transmit.  Vanquish the shadow, and he returns again in a new form requiring that we reckon with him once more.  We cannot escape ourselves!

The Internet allows everyone and anyone to be both host and audience, without the coercion and repression one finds in the structure of an impersonal system of power.  Such an environment is a natural breeding ground and salon for a revivification of what can only be termed a capsule of catharsis through the ceremonial experience of violation.

Mr. Dyszel’s successful exploration of the ideas within his passionate being speaks for itself.  To invent his own show regardless of the trauma and set himself firmly at the next foundation of where all culture will be transmitted in the future?

It is nothing less than stunning.

The movie ends with the closing of a former door and the opening of a new portal to worlds undreamed of.  It’s a whole new shared creative space.  One might say the monster not only survived, but lived to help spread the horror of a profound mystery to those who will come after us.

The horror host movement seems poised at the edge of a vast unmarked frontier.  What the practitioner-audience hybrid will make of it is hard to say—anything goes now.  There’s enough history now to form an idea of how things work out of countless trailblazed innovations.  The reactions of those who are themselves following personal visions as hosts are worth studying.

For example, I see in the easygoing testimony of Jerry Moore—who manifests as the outrageous Karlos Borloff—an affection for what Mr. Dyszel has accomplished.  He gained strength from the things he learned by experiencing himself at play with Count Gore on the tell-a-vision.

It’s enough to make me believe that the medium of late night horror shows not only has returned in a renewed form, but in a sense is better than ever before.  One has only to see the de-atomization of the community and the rapid sharing of ideas to see a strange solidarity emerging.

An ancient form of performance taking shape before our very eyes. Watch the movie and learn how profound changes in the world transform the way we experience ourselves as people. That we should owe our very life and soul to a vampire as channeled by a wandering artist of great destiny is truly a miracle of the age.

The key question is: “Did he meant to do that?”  Was it part of the act, this death-defying leap into the future? Before you can stop thinking again, the Count is before you, telling a horrible joke to bring it all back around again.

When I was a young boy, one of the places I loved to browse were stores with aquarium supplies.  They always had these cool knick-knacks you could put in your aquarium, from pirate treasure chests that bubbled to giant cliff sides with lots of hiding places for fish.

One time my folks bought me one half of a shipwreck set.  The set was of a sea galley in two pieces, presumably cracked in two because of a fire, an explosion, a pirate attack, or just hitting the rocks.  It could be any or even all of those!

I wanted the complete set, but my folks didn’t have enough money.  I went for the front half, with it’s detailed but fragile anchors and broken masts.  Assuming you set it up in an aquarium, a lifeboat flipped up when bubbles from an air hose collected underneath.  The figurehead was a gold, bare-breasted upper torso of a female figure.

I can remember the time as if it were yesterday.  The aquarium shop by the seaside, near the fish market.  The greedy unwrapping of my new toy, to be set in with my group of undersea toys and prizes.  Deep sea diving was a meditation I learned young.

Years passed, and the ship began to break apart and lose pieces of detail work.  One day I pulled the superstructure apart and broke the parts into smaller pieces.  That was the end of the toy.  But I kept one small piece—the figurehead, her breasts bare and her elbows pulled back as if she were thrusting forward into the waves.  She resided in The Box, waiting.

When I was a young man, my heart was broken and the life I thought I would live turned out to be a total failure.  Broken, lost, dazed; I wandered until the movie Titanic came out.  There on the temple screen of the last days of popular movie going, I connected with an experience that spoke to me of the failure of my life.

I grieved.

Down into the depths and broken in two, a mystery unknown stored within her submerged halls for all time.  Davy Jones triumphant, and I alone carried on to tell the tale if ever I regained some modicum of wit.

Yet the dreaming, yearning hope of what nothing remained moved me on.  Marking and remarking my tread with the scent of bitter tears until the voice of the unexplainable made itself known to me.

Failure is exploration, it said.

No longer a young man, I awoke, the gold of salvation on my hands and a numbing frost melting into my lips.  With the aching hunch of a starved prisoner I shrugged off rusted chains and stood up out of a cairn of stone suitable only for the dead.

A provident vision of a broken ship in two pieces from my youngest days, but the temptation is to turn away—imagining it childishness to desire what is so easily within one’s grasp now.  And a little fear, of losing again and of falling down back into the darkness.  To believe with one’s own eyes, yet to cringe away for uncertainty in one’s own worthiness.  Still longing, I convinced myself it is enough to see; this shall sustain me.

I had work to do, and with the talent of deep sea diving did what was meant to be done, rightly so.  These responsibilities I approached and accepted despite the lack of confidence, for if not I then who?  My ears might be inadequate, yet still I hear and listen.

Again, the vision, reduced price in a different place.  With signs from the intuition speaking loud and clear.  To shake off my last hesitation and accept is like lifting a mountain, moved.

This is my soul, my life, broken in pieces yet now whole and together as a secret treasure of the deep.  Where mysteries are found and solved.  Washed up on the shores of my being for me to behold and consider.

The Titanic is razed, and raised, rebuilt as miracles of inner healing take place.  My bruises are made clear; my dirty clothes wiped clean and my cuts sealed over with the softest of care.  What was unmendable has been renewed.

K and I meditate on this strange wonder.

Of course, as cool as the Robotech anime was for me back in the day, what has that got to do with the here and now (such as it is)?  Fear not intrepid reader, for I shall reveal more.

I mentioned that I had kept my die cast metal SDF-1 in part one.  I took it with me to college as a protective talisman.  During times of stress, it helped me to imagine I was the commander of the space defense fortress, fighting off the invading problems of my life.

The toy-as-talisman, or security blanket, encapsulated several reassuring images for me.  While being a military vessel it also contained the citizens of Macross Island, who had rebuilt their destroyed city within the ship.  They grew crops, manufactured goods, and engaged in trade with one another as the ship pursued its course back to earth.

There’s an element of Lost In Space inherent in the image, as well as a Noah’s Ark archetype at work.  The whole of humanity contained within a protective vehicle that manifests all their needs as it transports them to a new state of consciousness.

In the series, most of the population of earth gets destroyed during the final Zentraedi attack.  It’s the unlucky refugees who are isolated from their old life on earth who primarily survive to continue humanity in the new intergalactic world.  Bad as that recycled air and water must have been, it beats being atomized by reflex cannon bombardment from orbit!

Not exactly a wholesome or reassuring reality when you think about it.  The archetype still captures our imagination, however.  Battlestar Galactica used it’s titular spaceship as the flagship that rallies the survival of humanity in the fleet.  Starblazers used the Argo as the means by which the crew accomplishes their goal of restoring earth.  The Discovery in 2001: A Space Odyssey brings humanity in touch with the alien intelligence of the monolith at Jupiter.

The ship as the transport vehicle through the unknown or the unconscious (represented by the sea or space), carrying with it the experiment of humanity from one state of awareness to the other.  The whole package by default carries with it all that is needed.  As they say, wherever a human being goes they carry themselves with them!

You might say that these ships are all small imitations or intimations of the biggest ship of all, the earth.  These ship-tales echo our own world experience by bringing the grand affair into a more comprehensible field of form.

So while I’ve been making use of these popular tales, from Star Trek to Robotech, I’m getting the feeling that it’s time for me to consider what my own, personal, individualized form of the ship-tale is.

If this were an ocean based exploration I’d choose a submarine, something closer to Voyage To The Bottom Of the Sea or 20,000 Leagues Beneath The Sea.  One could make it an earth adventure, and then get something akin to At The Earth’s Core or The Last Dinosaur.  Outer space could mean the vast strangeness of Space: 1999 or long struggle and searching of Lost In Space.

Countless environments, phenomenon and consciousnesses waiting to be experienced and meditated upon.  All worthy and interesting explorations to me.

Trouble is, what will I pick?  Perhaps I will build something from the ground up, exploring what components the experience consists of through discovery.

Stay tuned!

All right, enough already!  The sexual tension between these two forms is driving me nuts.  Nobody buys this mutual dislike as anything but a prelude to getting a room and making babies.  Get on with it!

For a long time we had a bunch of privileged intellectuals manufacturing consent by dividing the peanut butter and the celery between LIT and RACY, also known as high and low literature.  The “stuff that matters” from the unwashed laundry of the masses who don’t count because they are the bewildered herd and must be told what to value.

Along comes the E in Ebook and all of a sudden Pbooks are revealed for what they are—form, not the actual consciousness that inspires culture.  The entire social control mechanism that maintains access to distribution to consciousness is laid bare.  People naturally begin to ask questions, particularly those in the bewildered herd who have never known expression before.

That delicious E is the hammer in the Apple ad.  Thor’s hammer, the bolt of the storm that is the Aquarian lightning age, connecting thought.  The contact that is the point of all literature both high and low, author and reader touching each other, both one and apart, oscillating in response.  AUM.

In that moment of explosion, she joins the LIT and the RACY into LITERACY, one of the more stunning discoveries of this medieval age of thinking.  Now paper (earth) can be thought (air) and vice versa.

This is an unavoidable revolution in consciousness occurring right before our eyes.  As this bolt of electricity strikes earth and ignites a firestorm in the forest of paper, a lot of people are going to have to flee for their lives as their comfortable burrows and nests burn to the ground.

Make no mistake; this is a painful thing for a lot of ordinary folks who depend on the old growth forest for their lives.  But understand those who welcome the change as well as those who cringe in the foliage.  Everybody, and I mean EVERY BODY on any side of the fence is in on this.  We all get to participate as the forest burns down around our ears.  Open your heart and listen to the things you haven’t heard.

I emphasize with the struggle; those about to be hurt by the flames could be me, or someone I care about.  I’m excited and terrified both—where do I run?  Where do you run?  Who is already cut off from the lake—wait, is this the dry season?  That cave a safe haven or a future oven filled with smoke?  What is right action?  Shock the monkey!

It is a time for fear.

The copyright-royalty model is outdated and inefficient.  It is primarily a system for putting access to the forms of consciousness into the hands of concentrated centers of impersonal power, justified by projecting an image of the properly compensated and approved artist for their labors.

Don’t delve too far into that model—for every lucky artist you’ll find thousands ripped off, their rights in the vault of some conceptual entity that doesn’t count as a moral agent.  The millions who don’t get to participate at all because only “artists” can do that stuff?  They get to pay to know what they think.

Alternate economic models and mechanisms of access have been out for years.  Novels were the death of real books, just as recordable audiotape was the death of records and libraries would destroy bookstores.  Those with privilege, who stand to lose the most by sharing, always cry bitterly when community insists that people raise their standard of living more humanely.  Specialists are going to have to share their space with more generalists.

Access to data is still affected by class.  The decline of fossil fuels and rare metals leads to a cage match between military contracts and consumer electronic manufacturers.  The iron rule of oligarchy always obtains.  But humans are naturally moral and strive for freedom.  The human condition is nature’s way of making us figure it out.

The Kindle and the iPad are already ancient history.  You think that’s what the kids are using?  I’ll let that one be a surprise.  Developers hate Apple.  Who is going to put Ebooks in the hands of starving villagers with a credit card?

The price for everything is inflated.  People want what they want now and they want to pay what they want to pay.  You going to tell the vast majority of mindless beasts how to think?  Good luck!  Prices will have to fall and the money to be made will shrink.  Subscriptions and proprietary ala Carte tollbooths are yesterday’s memories.  Get used to it, what you think is right doesn’t matter.

How are you going to control the exchange of thoughts?  No, seriously?  Actions can be directed with a truncheon or a lawsuit, but you going to tell people what to do with their thoughts?  Even brutal dictatorships let people think what they want as long as they obey.  Rust always trumps the iron rule in the end.

Nobody can predict the future.  If you think that’s what I’m doing you aren’t paying attention.  Invigorated by the conflagration, the forest will grow back.  The new life is always greater than the old.  The status quo is death; plenty of new species will migrate to fill the void.  That’s the scary thought—who will be the new neighbor?  Won’t you be my neighbor?

The playing field gained a new dimension as well as a new form.  This isn’t squeezing anything out; it’s rather that the old way of doing things is not going to dominate any more.  It will have to content itself with being a smaller fraction of a greater whole.

Yes, this means even the crap gets a say.  Or do you mean “the crap we don’t approve of”?  I say let the crap hounds have their say and show us what they got.  If they can’t ante up they’ll make for some fine fertilizer in the new forest.  Freedom of speech means the right to participate alongside the great names and have your turn to speak—look at any sportscaster program with call-ins.

All of us start at the Level Zero crap hound bottom.  Never forget we all begin in ignorance and grow according to many variables outside our conscious control.  It’s in all our interests to create ecosystems of variable creative exploration.  It’ll do both the wizards and the crap hounds some good.

Physical objects are totems to show allegiance.  Don’t underestimate that.  Also keep in mind that whatever is not nailed down is mine and whatever I can pry loose is not nailed down.  Thoughts want to be free, so let them be so!  Air always escapes a prison.  The point is to hook up people who have an affinity with your thoughts and gratify them with stuff they actually want.

Youth culture is already doing this.  They grow up with everything that ever was at their fingertips, creating their own wants and satisfying their own curiosity.  Literacy is exploding like a thunderbolt.  Get out of the way if you can’t lend a hand.

Doomsday fantasies of resentment can eat my shorts.  We’re already there.  The hum of the lightning age moves through an emerging electro-agrarianism that will bring both a shadow we’ve never encountered before and a worldwide literacy the likes of which cannot be conceived of.

Just wait until you see the child Pbook and Ebook make together.

The hybrid is the message of the savior of humanity, believe it!

This one’s for Liephus.

Preliminary Note:
I went to see this flick on a matinee and all I can say is dang!  $7.50, plus $3.50 “3D charge”?  That was 22 bucks for K and I.  Talk about fleecing the customer.  The theater was about 80% full, which isn’t bad for a Sunday afternoon and six weeks into the release.

As a result of the high prices, I saw very few people buying concessions—way to keep the theaters in business Hollywood!  K and I smuggled in a water bottle and crackers.  May both the theaters and Hollywood burn in the fires of Eblis Tech.

K knew this already, but I was very surprised to learn that you don’t necessarily get new 3D glasses when you see the movie.  We both got used pairs.  Luckily, K brought antiseptic wipes and we cleaned our allotted pair.  Sure hope the person before me didn’t have a cold or worse!

Okay, okay, recycling.  I get it.  But what if I wanted a souvenir?  What if I wanted to bring my pair back to another showing, in case the movie was so awesome I had to see it again?  I don’t care about the “3D charge” always being tacked on, but if I pay I want to keep the glasses.  Let me decide if I want to give them back for re-use.

They were obviously used too.  The lenses were scratched and blotchy around the edges.  But the worst indignity is that the glasses have anti-theft devices in the plastic, so you look like a moron if you try to remove them from the theater.  Dude, I’m renting somebody else’s glasses?

So at the end of the film I stomped mine into several pieces and kicked them across the floor.  Childish, I know.  But it ticked me off.  Way to make me feel positive about the 3D experience Hollywood!

Technical Analysis:
Okay, so the big selling point of the film is the visual effects.  What else has Hollywood got these days?  Certainly nothing remotely near a good yarn, that’s for sure.  I’d say my visual experience was a mixed bag.

When the 3D visuals work, they work beautifully.  The depth and disassociation of immersion are really something.  I believed I was seeing another world and I felt myself plunging in.

Unfortunately, one thing 3D does not do well is breaking the screen barrier.  When it happens, it throws you out of the movie and you have to start over.

For example, I’d be rushing through a forest with the main characters and then a fern frond or an insect would move too far out of frame and towards the audience in an awkward way, reminding me that this is just a movie with fancy tricks to distract you from looking too closely at the story.

Quite frankly if this is as good as it gets after 170 years of the technology (Stereoscopy was invented in 1840!) then these limits will never be surpassed.  Regardless of high definition or whatever super realistic photo-realism you throw at the audience. It’s an illusion of depth, not actual depth.

One must always remember that the main vehicle of immersion is the audience members themselves—we fill in the blanks psychologically and naturally.  But when the line is crossed the spell is broken.  I just didn’t feel this medium has been mastered enough to make a push for 3D being the savior of the movie industry.

It’s hard to judge the computer-generated effects, particularly the giant blue cat people.  Again, it’s a mixed bag.  The 3D effect masks a lot of problems that might be more glaring in a non-3D version.  I couldn’t help but be drawn in by the action of the characters and forget they were just advanced polygon conglomerations.  But during slower scenes the characters at times seemed off to me.

Mainly I found my eyes growing tired two-thirds of the way into the movie and I just stopped noticing the 3D effect because I didn’t care anymore.  About that time my eyes also started to water a lot, which made me chuckle.  I wonder if those next to me were wondering why I was crying when the “super evil no doubt about it he deserves to die” bad guy finally was killed!

My thought is that the 3D did best when the movie was in nature mode—the National Geographic style exposition scenes really stood out.  The computer graphics worked best when there was lots of action, but not so well when characters were hanging around talking.

The Meat And Potatoes:
It’s an average movie, made remarkable by the fact that:

• The dying movie industry has been churning out mostly poor material for a while, and
• It relies on the “event” gimmick of 3-D, reminiscent of carnival attraction psychology.

There’s precious little that’s new or groundbreaking in the movie.  The world of the humans is pretty much cribbed from the dark realism of the Alien/Aliens/Outland vein.  The world of the giant blue cat people is spectacular to behold, but we’re never allowed to immerse ourselves in it for long.  The movie has an agenda (save the planet) and nothing is going to get in its way.

I seriously expected Michael Jackson to step out of a trapdoor and stand in front of the huge bulldozer plowing down the magic trees.

Which is funny, because if this were a real science fiction film, it would focus on the “shock” of the premise—humans becoming aliens to infiltrate and weaken them in order to exploit their world.  What we get instead is fantasy, specifically the tried and true romance melodrama of the wounded hero who suffers indignity so he can inflict revenge on the source of his pain. It’s all about the sensationalism.

The criticisms of the film I’ve read focus on the characters and setting as if they were literally real.  Watching the film, I couldn’t help but think it’s a case of most people being unable to distinguish between psychic, non-real facts and non-psychic, real facts.

To say that this movie is Dances With Wolves meets The Battle For Endor, or another story of “white hunter saves noble savages” misses the point entirely.  It only scratches the surface.

I mean, there’s nothing plausible about this movie at all.  It all takes place in the unconscious on a symbolic level.  Any relation to the real world is only in the most superficial way.

You have human reason using the psychological constructs of cloned surrogates, mechanical exoskeletons and various forms of missile-firing VTOLs to invade the primordial unconscious.

The giant blue cat people aren’t people at all.  They’re superhuman beings that exist in the unconscious.  One has only to watch them walk through the neon glows of their environment populated by chimerical amalgamations of real animals and realize one is viewing numinous material.

In the unconscious all beings are by nature linked by the collective.  It is the cloned surrogates, the avatars that allow humans to become hybrids and cross over into the unconscious.

What’s most disappointing to me is that this movie doesn’t depict any raise in consciousness at all.  Ordinary people get to live back home on a “dead world” (the real world), while the big decisions get to be made by corporate and military officers, with scientists in the background as advisers as long as they say the right things.

But it’s all hopeless.  The unconscious always wins in the end and human reason is annihilated—sent back to earth as POWs while the giant blue cat people get to continue living in the paradise of unconsciousness.

The movie begins with the main character watching his twin brother incinerated—a scientist representing the highest form of reason and the main character’s own connection to humanity—and ends with him abandoning his real body for a regression into the unconsciousness of infantile existence.  It’s a bleak statement on the human condition that is safe, boring, and done to death by better movies with a fraction of this movie’s budget.

In a metaphorical sense the movie is not too far from the truth.  The designated carriers of our own worst qualities are pressing dangerously into unknown territories from which tremendous natural forces might be unleashed to tragic effect.

Environmental catastrophe is a real danger, as is our running out of hydrocarbons with which to fuel our unchecked advance into the farthest reaches of outer space—so we can avoid inner space.  But the movie never engages with these issues at all.

“Unobtainium” (the goal of the “bad guys”) is a good term—it doesn’t exist and it never existed.  The whole military industrial complex is headed for a brick wall and all of us will be paying the price in work not done on ourselves.

The magicians of aboriginal populations have been using avatars for millennia.  They at least have the good sense to come back and use what they have learned to help real people.  Nope, not this movie.  Our hero is on a one-way ticket to the faerie realms.

The people back home have no clue what just happened.  The soldiers, suits and scientists haven’t learned squat.  The fortunate few who have “gone native” and fight for the giant blue cat people all die.  The giant blue cat people are embittered by their experiences and now hostile.  The main character abandons his real life body for a supernatural one—just like when one becomes a vampire!

The modern savior as embodied by the hybrid is discarded.  Nobody wins.

But if you are looking for an action flick that sells a vision of the powerless rising up to defeat their oppressors—psst, hey kid, rent these plastic glasses and go in that tent.

Overcooked:
The fatal flaw of this movie is that it gets in it’s own way.

When the story is allowed to just happen it’s fun and engaging.  But too often the 3D, the computer graphics, the main character’s narration, the sudden attacks of  slow-motion (which always kick you out of the action)  and the rush to tell three complex acts in three hours—all serve to remind us we are watching a movie.

There were several scenes that cried out to be left alone to develop longer.  Too often I found myself letting go, only to cut to a scene that was painfully tedious or unnecessary.

Scenes like the main character’s first experience of his avatar (the joy and freedom of a supernatural body), the exploration and losing of his way in the forest as day turns to an alien blacklight night (departure of the hero into the unconscious), and the dizzying heights of the journey to the nests of the banshees (letting go of one’s earth-bound limitations and transforming them into spirit).  Great stuff.

Then the movie would trip over itself with an out-of-the-blue scene, like Colonel McEvil making a speech to the generic evil mercenaries using Iraq war references. JUST IN CASE I DIDN’T CATCH THE MOVIE’S DRIFT.

Because you know, American movie audiences are stupid and need to be told everything. They can’t make associations using their imagination, why the very idea is ludicrous!

The movie never turns off the Exit signs on this ride; there’s always one around the next corner. Lest you grow alarmed that the Pirates of The Caribbean ride might eat the guests.

Well, after Titanic where can you go but down?

That’s what my friend h-bomb said. I believe she is correct. It’s time to kick this series to the curb and look for the new life that will feed us.

K and I have been watching the original series and made a horrific discovery. The old series is out of print. What is being sold now is the old series with the special effects and opening music revised. Basically, all the special effects shots have been replaced by modern CGI scenes in an attempt, I suppose, to inject new life in the series. Talk about revisionist history!

Dude, the crappy special effects were part of the charm. This is just stupid. Things like the colorization of black and white film, or the re-release of the Star Wars trilogy aren’t audience-driven explorations.

All the coprorate (like my new spelling?) owners have done is made Star Trek more irrelevant. Face facts suits, this golden goose has been throttled to death, you ain’t getting squat anymore, no matter how you re-imagine this stuff.

Well, okay. A livejournal acquaintance (Tweedle Me Deedles!) once did a post about how simplistic and ridiculous the old Star Trek was and I didn’t want to believe him. He’s right though. This stuff just doesn’t hold up anymore, did it ever? It’s headed right for the dustbin of history as a fad. Hek, I’m wondering if Science Fiction itself isn’t headed the same way these days.

Even the reboot wasn’t anything new or different, just more of the same. When you start adjusting the show to try and maintain the interest, the process has entered a recycling sandpit. Each effort thereafter is going to be worse off than the one before. How many people do you know are talking about Star Trek and how “fresh” it is? For goodness sakes, there’s a reason why ideas die and are reborn in new forms. Get on with it already!

The youth aren’t getting drawn in either, they’ve already got their awesome cool dude stuff to hit up for tasty culture goodness AND they can hit it on the old school front as well. There’s no “drawing in a new generation” anymore. The kids are born with it all now.

The bad moments of behavior in Star Trek just seem to get worse as I get older. The solutions to the problems in consciousness just irk me at times, the course of thinking that are pursued. Of course, as a kid I didn’t notice these things quite so much (it was a different collective consciousness at that time). But now, ugh. The flaws just stand out like sore festering zits.

The evil bureaucracy of Star Trek is there right at the beginning. Something that shouldn’t exist at all if this is a “hopeful vision of the future”. The much-vaunted solving of poverty-disease-crime seems to me not a matter of the system now but a result of warp drive energy (dependent upon rare dilithium crystals, oh the resource wars never end). The citizens of the federation enjoy increased standards of living because of the abundance of energy, not because they have rights.

The settler colonialism expressed in “The Apple” episode, made me laugh out loud. Yes, let’s force our way of thinking on the natives because our way is better. It’s somewhere around this time that references start being made to a Prime Directive. Maybe the Prime Directive was coming into being as a means of justification, not unlike the Just War Theory bogeyman is used to excuse violence.

Watching the evil Kirk from “The Enemy Within” attack yeoman Rand in her quarters, followed by the awful post-assault counseling that McCoy gives (with Kirk present and demanding she explain herself!), made me cringe. This is the kind of care that exists in the future? Pathetic. Hard to watch.

The cheap jokes at Spock’s expense—mostly based upon the science officer’s physical characteristics. I mean, okay it’s close friends busting balls for comedy relief. But it still strikes me as unfunny and a bit too much of showing the reptile brain.

Not that the intention of the series creator doesn’t exert an influence. And it should be remembered that the network suits were interfering daily with attempts at making a moral statement. If you consider the times in which this TV show appeared, to even suggest that the crew have a female black officer or a Russian weapons officer was a ballsy move.

There are times when Star Trek does begin to reveal a vision that transcends it’s mediocre reality in-play. When the crew members pursue more compassionate lines of inquiry (trying to understand the Horta in “Devil In The Dark”, or use the translator in “Metamorphosis”) the narrative holds together more strongly. This is true exploration.

The show is not important because of what it depicts, but what it evokes—an imagination of a better future. The seeds of a future society taking root in the present, which for us is now in the past.

I will always love the original series, as broken and simple-minded as it appears now. However, the time has come to re-examine the show, break it into bits and cast it into the flames. We can do better, and we will do better if we try.

A five decade journey that was worthwhile, but now it’s time to dock and see what we’ve learned. There’s more to life than charting gaseous anomalies.