A sea shanty written David Lovine, salty bard of the Salish Sea and beyond. I’m playing the Italian Concertina given me by Marcus Lang. Thanks Marcus for your generosity.
I’m inspired by other’s creativity in sharing their work online during this difficult period of isolation. May my rough music contribute to this effort.
One of my favorite sea songs played on my Saxon lyre. I accidentally did the second verse twice. Guess I was distracted by fingering this Medieval contraption.
A song written by Larry Kaplan about Zebulon Tilton, Captain of the Alice S. Wentworth.
Continue reading “Old Zeb”
As long as we have not realized that the mode of being of our mind resides in the union of relative truth and absolute truth—a realization that corresponds to awakening—these two truths are seen as separate instead of being seen in their original unity.
—Bokar Rimpoche
Milo Yiannopoulos’s ambiguous role is fabricated to appeal to opposite ends of conservative spectrum, so that both sides might then be swayed toward more extreme, alt-right views. He explained his role perfectly by saying his position with Breitbart countered the perception that the Alt Right is homophobic, and racist. He’s a shill to make their hateful rhetoric appeal to edgy progressives and third-party stooges in order to draw them into the alt-right fold. Also, since Yiannopoulos is gay, the alt-right can spin this to deflect accusations of intolerance.
The word “troll” needs qualification–there are many forms. Some are ornery cranks who, at least, honestly represent their true motives. Some are masters, who raise trolling to an art form–SNL’s Fatal Attraction satire is an example–while others are paid by the alt-right to pose as progressives who encourage us to speak against our own self-interest. Much troll activity is to get us to echo Alt-Right, talking points.
For instance, trolls–under the guise of progressives–encourage members of the resistance to gloat about the murder of a Klansman. This only validates the extreme, right wing propaganda that claims the left is the hateful, violent party. This image of the left as violent can be used as pretext to attack protesters. This is crucial. At this time of escalating tensions, we can practice a compassion and human decency that accords with sound strategy–to say nothing of protecting ourselves and loved ones who participate in peaceful protests.
We need to be wary of the propaganda campaign against the DNC which encourages progressives to smear Elizabeth Warren for her alleged, selling out to establishment Democrats. According to this line, it is not Russian interference, but she and Hillary who are ultimately responsible for # 45, as well as our current malaise. You see this echoed on the RT affiliated, Ring of Fire and Redacted Today videos. Since Putin doesn’t allow dissenting opinion–without an ulterior motive–are the rad hosts of R of F being exploited by Putin in his attempt at a global coup? Or are they willfully parroting his party line?
The ultimate form of control is to compel us to participate in our own subjugation. Putin, from his KGB experience, knows this well. We shouldn’t be stooges, drawn by trolls into dizzying webs of dissembling and projection. Don’t allow them to frame the dialogue in their own terms.
Actually, there is some truth to progressive intolerance–we are intolerant of the racist and treasonous policies of the 45 gang.
The real mystery does not behave mysteriously, but speaks a secret language.
–Carl Gustav Jung
Bird poop is the Prima Materia of the opus, the alpha and omega of the great work of the philosophers. Transmuted and transfigured by the alchemical fire in the sealed retort of the adepts, the excretions of our winged brethren reveal the grand pageant of creation on the microcosmic scale. I shall endeavor to elucidate the arcana of avian excrement and thereby elevate my humble office of brush bearer to that of high art; to seek amid the white glyphs that adorn the docks a sign that might illuminate secrets of a hidden world.
Bird poop is the mother of all elements, without beginning, existent from all eternity and mixed with the handful of primal earth Adam brought forth from Eden. It is found always and everywhere. It contains the Divine presence in the obdurate whiteness of its adamantine– and often goopy–reality. It is both the beginning and end of the great work, the primal ooze from which the aspirant takes flight into the rarefied spheres of heavenly gnossis.
This post is the first in a series logging my daily circumambulation, bearing the broom of my high office. The broom is the emblem of adepts, the standard of those who seek the philosopher’s stone among the crustacean beasties that reign over the intertidal zone.
So the land swap was stopped when the City Attorney admonished the Council it was their obligation to compel Parks to abide by the terms of the transfer and honor the restrictions. The Council then voted unanimously to record a conservation easement which would preserve the Tot Lot in perpetuity.
But then, Val Tollefson moved to delay the recording of the Conservation Easement while an access road was worked out between Laughlin, Parks, and the adjacent, Madison Cottages community. It seems the Madison Cottages folk decide it best to accommodate the access road because if the Wyatt Cottages proposal is not granted, a more intrusive and aesthetically disagreeable development might replace the good work of Cutler/Anderson Architects.
Point well taken, but too smacking of defeatist accommodation for me. And since the good folk of Madison Cottages represent a mere fraction of Park’s-going public, why should they have such disproportionate influence?
We await the announcement of the Wyatt Cottages proposal to the Design Review Board with a mixture of dread and anticipation. Will the concerned parties present accurate information this time around regarding the Declarations of Covenants, Restrictions and Reciprocal Easements–remember those?
This is but a sketch of a convoluted tale of intrigue. There remain such details as the erroneous reports by the County Assessor, a land value increase of nearly 80% the very year the property was transferred to Parks, the “disappearance” of the studio from the assessor’s building report 2 years before it was demolished, the miraculous appearance of a ghostly pole-frame building, mysterious address changes, and specious readings of legal terms.
It seems we are afflicted with a double denial of many troubling aspects of the concurrent Wyatt Cottages and Suzuki developments. On the one hand, the Madison Cottages community–as well as the Friends of Suzuki– sweep the shady history of land transfers to Parks under the rug. On the other, we have the present Council embarrassed by their part in obscuring Parks and the previous Council’s questionable deeds. Add to this HRB’s reluctance to jeprodise Council support by allowing public scrutiny of these sketchy practices, and the tight-lipped, good old boys in the Building Department, and you have a first class cover-up.
All sides of this debate can be said to lack transparency. We need a fresh and honest perspective on the issues that shape the island’s future. We need tranlate our high ideals of inclusiveness and economic equality into practical solutions while preserving the precious remnants of our natural environment.
So I took the Prince Ivan thoroughfare up the hill to the east of town to where Joel had said E.G’s new developments were. It seems a big mall was in the works and EG, with the backing of some Ohio LLC, was building a pharmaceutical emporium and a corgie day care center. There was a broohaha when local poodle lovers had protested this plan as being discriminatory against their chosen breed, and had filed a complaint with the City to that effect. But the mayor, being a member of the Little Siberia corgie society, set them straight on that score, and the permit had fairly sailed over the desk of her brother Vinnie in the planning department.
I turned onto a gravel road that led north into the woods. A white and yellow building notice was spiked on the wide based of an old-growth cedar. I got out and walked down the road until I saw a short old guy with ruddy complexion being led by, what appeared to be, his grand daughter. After a respectful greeting I asked:
“Did you know this parcel is being developed by a mobster?”
I’ve been told, that for a private eye, I exhibit a marked lack of discretion, and this was not lost on his grand daughter who attended his obvious infirmity with touching solicitude. He hobbled, leered at me with a sideways grin, and said in a thick, southern Italian accent:
“That’s good. It will be protection.”
I got back into the Dart, lit a cigarette, and thought it over. All the seemingly casual series of events now funneled into an inevitable vortex in which the alluring image of Lupe flowed with languid abandon in the smoky arabesques of my square.
I suddenly became quite nervous indeed. For here in this lonely stretch of woods, all the crazy, disconnected events that transpired on the rock added up in a most disconcerting manner. It was as if all the paranoid imaginings of my troubled adolescence had come to realization; and the events of the past week had formed into a clear pattern. Most of all, I saw that no interference in the schemes of real estate speculators to realize a tidy profit would be welcome—especially such interference as might be offered by a simple artist like myself who does detective work as a sideline.
I was having, what we used to call, a flashback, and all these horrid imaginings unfixed my hair and made my heart knock frantically against all the studied uses of cool. The line between real and imagined dangers becomes very sketchy at times, and steadier mugs than myself have found serious trouble in extravagant delusions and a swell dame in a skin-tight, sequined dress. At such moments it behooves a simple gumshoe like myself to breathe deep, take a powder, and intone the sacred mantra: Fuck that.
Tales from the mouth of a wolf
Just another WordPress.com weblog
Reflections on Canadian Culture From Below the Border
STAY AN ARTIST
poetry w/teeth
Raku pottery, vases, and gifts
Everything You Want To Read
"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Ps 147:3
Astral Lucid Music - Philosophy On Life, The Universe And Everything...
Art Towards a Happy Day
George Lakoff has retired as Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is now Director of the Center for the Neural Mind & Society (cnms.berkeley.edu).
The art of designing your life
Drawing my truth and writing what burns.
Photographic Life In The Little Studio
Artist
Fantasy and sci-fi reviews and fiction by J.J. Adamson
A View from the Wheelhouse 