I’m asking because some of you may have noticed that a couple weeks ago I announced, “I give up.” What I gave up was posting status updates or comments and “likes” concerning other people’s posts. (How hard is it to click “Like?”) I chose to become one of what I’m told some folks refer to as Facebook “lurkers.” Hence, I’ve spent the last few days lurking, posting the occasional link but refraining from offering quotes, observations, or even cute kitty pictures (metaphorically speaking, of course). Trouble is, I like doing those things. I realized this morning I was reverting to my past victim mentality of “I’ll show you, I’ll hurt myself.”

Moreover, while I agree that love (what early Christians named agape, but also eros) is the answer, the means to accomplish this end is to communicate in one way or another with one another. Facebook is one of those ways.

Going beyond Facebook and borrowing a term from my favorite Martian, the ultimate goal of communication is to grok one another. Robert A. Heinlein coined the term “grok” in his 1961 science-fiction classic Stranger in a Strange Land. According to Wikipedia, it is a Martian expression that can not be defined in Earthling terms, but can be associated with various literal meanings such as “water”, “to drink”, “life”, or “to live”, and has a much more profound figurative meaning that is hard for terrestrial culture to understand because of its assumption of a singular reality. From the novel:

Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines grok as “to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with” and “to empathise or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment.” I think of grokking as sentience which I believe is shared with everyone and everything on this earth as well as Earth itself, as explained by the Gaia principle.

While status updates and all will probably never rise to the level of grok, Facebook is a fine vehicle for communication. So, I’m back because it seems “meet, right, and salutary” to be so.

Oh, and for those of you who read this to the end, a treat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q34z5dCmC4M

Imagine a fish out of water. Now, imagine you are that fish. Panning out, you as fish are flopped on a king-size bed in a Comfort Inn on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood California. Less than ten feet away is a closed door. Less than 10 feet from that door is the locked hatchback of a 2007 Tangerine Pearl PT Cruiser Touring Edition with indestructible seats and a beige interior. It just barely registers on the LA auto cool scale. Behind the locked hatchback is an ocean of air consisting of an LV30 tank of liquid oxygen and four or five standard E-cylinders. You delude yourself that you have options. You can (a) flop off the bed, somehow open the door, flop to the back of the car, somehow unlock it, thrust a cannula up your nose and turn the liquid tank dial to 4. If that were really an option, you’d’ve already done it and not found yourself in this predicament. So, you move onto (b). You have enough consciousness left to know you still hold onto your cell phone, try John again? He said he kept his phone on vibrate, but maybe not at night. He hadn’t answered a minute ago. Option (c), then. 911. Option (b) one more time before consigning your fate to the municipality of LA. Send. Send. He answers! “Come!” . . . “Now.” And then the wait. Can you wait? Breathe. Breathe. But this atmosphere is only 7% oxygen. Not nearly enough for lungs reduced to 15% function, with airwaves full of mucous obstructions, inflamed by LA pollution, narrowed with panic. Breathe. The Calvary arrives. “Get [housekeeping] to open the door.” Success! No, unbelievably, inevitably, stupidly I’d flipped the hinged-lock over. I would have to move, after all. Lunge and the door opens. Somehow the car key gets handed off. Get a tank. Take off the paper wrapper covering the fittings. Regulator off the empty tank. Onto the new tank. Set it in. Turn it on. No! Precious molecules gushing out the sides. Unscrew, reset, screw. Turn. On. Click around to 4. Grab a cannula. Put in nose. Breathe. Breathe. 4 liters of 100 percent oxygen each minute. Yes. Gasp. “We did it!” Gasp. “You did it!” Praise. Praise for the brother, so often incapable of performing the most basic technical or mechanical task. “Never tell Darcy. You, we must never tell Darcy.”

And how, you may be wondering, did little fish find herself in such dire straits at the Comfort Inn that morning?

At that point, I realized I had the start of an epic. It began in medias res, and presented a question that would take some spacetime to explore and eventually answer.

On the drive out to L.A., I listened to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I realize most of you probably know the process Kerouac went through to write his road trip experiences. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the story, in brief, he loaded a blank 120-foot roll of tracing paper into a typewriter set up in his Manhattan kitchen. Dubbed “The Scroll,” he sat and typed virtually nonstop for three weeks. The finished product was a single-spaced document without margins or paragraph breaks. [A tour of The Scroll in 2007 included a stop at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. I have no idea how I missed that.] Over the next few years, with a lot of help from his friends, the scroll became the novel On the Road.

I decided I would create a virtual scroll on my computer where I would record in no particular order the life experiences that had forged the bond among we few, we happy siblings, Big Brother John, Middle Me, and Baby Sister Mary Beth. I managed to write a few thousand words over the course of perhaps a month, and then an insidious event occurred that would sabotage almost everything in my life. I subscribed to World of Warcraft and became mired in the realms of Azeroth, et.al for years, yes, years. It has only been in the last few weeks that I have managed to abandon my beloved avatars. In large part, I credit George R.R. Martin’s saga The Song of Ice and Fire. I read all five volumes seriatim, only taking time to sleep and maintain my Facebook pages.

During those lost years, I had also forsaken my novel The First Voice. Sporadic attempts to make progress ended badly. I didn’t suffer from writer’s block. Instead, I realized I was a writer who hated to write. Moreover, I had so much other “stuff” floating around in my brain that I couldn’t stay focused on Voice. I returned to the notion of the virtual scroll. I decided to put the original project on hold and start a new scroll where I would empty my brain and make room for Voice. And so I purchased a “typewriter” in the form of an 11.6 inch MacBook Air that is dedicated almost exclusively to creating this new scroll. I loaded Word, opened a new document, chose – what else – the “American Typewriter” font, and here I am.

I envision this scroll to be a record of what has brought me to this point in the present in one multiverse, as opposed to what brought my brother and I to the earlier point described in the first scroll. [As an aside: recall that all points in a circle are equidistant from its center.]

For those of you who don’t know, my brother was brutally murdered in a road rage incident in L.A. in the early morning hours of November 23, 2008. I still haven’t reached a point where I can write about him. Shortly after his death, I did compose a Walking Raven post entitled Two Flutes and One to Wail for those of you who would like to know more.

At this juncture, I intend to focus on “stuff” that I will publish intermittently in the form of Walking Raven entries.

Long ago, I asked my buddy mjh to set up www.walkingraven.com. In part to jump-start a sustained effort to write Voice. I am hoping that writing this scroll will help me return to it, even though if I’ve learned anything from my Facebook experience, it is that attempts at “social-networking” serve more as reminders, we are all pretty much isolated voices crying in the wilderness.

I was, and remain, completely baffled by how this entry came to be. After reading it through, I concluded it and I have too many shared ideas to believe that anyone but me would have written it. Thus, I decided to give it a final edit and post it to Walking Raven. Here, then, is the mysterious entry:

Write My Novel – Please

Near as I can tell I’ve got one, maybe two, books in me. If I were ever to get them written, I want to write poetry and Walking Raven posts exclusively. Hence this entry to see if anybody else out there wants to give it try. In brief, Taylor Milleva, is a mathematical prodigy. She is a poster child that makes we Americans feel better about the somewhat dismal mathematics ratings compared to the rest of the world. [When I first read the draft, I had absolutely no idea how I came to name my protagonist Taylor Milleva. In thinking about it, “Taylor” may have made the short list as a name for a dog or cat. Just before posting this, I decided to search Google for “Milleva” to see if any results could shed some light. Imagine my surprise and then realization when I learned that “Mileva” was the name of Einstein’s first wife, a mathematician and physicist in her own right. Some folks believe it was really she who authored what Einstein dubbed the Annus Mirabilis papers in 1905. So my choice for Taylor’s surname solved.]

At an early age Taylor began pursuing a degree in Mathematics at Brown University. To allow her to do this, her parents insisted she take two liberal arts classes of her choice each semester. The first semester she chose Modern (Post 1950) American Literature and an in-depth comparative reading of Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Susanna Clark’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. She took Art History and Music Appreciation her second semester.

Taylor believes there is a universal “music of the spheres” which was spoken (or rather, sung/chanted) by human, celestial, and sentient beings until Yahweh and his heavenly entourage collectively known as “Us” decided to topple the tower of Babel and confound all speech. [For more about this topic, you may want to check out the Walking Raven entry entitled “Us.”] Taylor filled boards and boards with mathematical formulae looking for the key to this original language without success.  She was especially interested in discovering the Lost Chord.

At the end of spring semester, Taylor was given the chance of a lifetime — to spend the summer as an intern working at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. It was the summer the quantum physicists would attempt to prove the existence of the Higgs boson a/k/a the God particle. Some people are frightened that in doing so, a singularity will be created and a second “Big Bang” will result blowing us, and the rest of the universe, to kingdom come, metaphorically speaking, of course.  [We all know that won’t happen as the world is scheduled to end this coming December 12. The experiment actually planned for the collider is scheduled to take place this coming summer, but just in case.]

Well, I’ve gotten Taylor to CERN, now you’re on your own. Come up with a solid ending and figure out how to get there. Have fun.

I have lived with thoughts of death for many years. My mother died of breast cancer when she was 42. I was 15. We three siblings were quick learners. Good or bad, I think each of us took away from her death a “why bother?” attitude. I finally lived beyond her death age.  Maybe I was going to live for a while after all. Not very long thereafter, I was diagnosed with severe COPD.

One thing is certain, our mother was seriously depressed, and we her children were too. I don’t exactly know when my brother started taking anti-depressants, but it changed his life and the lives of those around him. My brother suffered many symptoms of OCD. He was, well, rigid. Prozac made him much easier to live with. I can remember vividly the epiphanic moment when I realized just what an effect it had on him. It was during one of my visits to see him in Manhattan. We had left the apartment and were walking on 14^th to the Subway station to catch a Westside train. At some point he looked down at his feet and realized he was not wearing the shoes he had planned to wear. I steeled myself, awaiting the temper tantrum that was sure to come as he turned us around and began stomping back to his apartment to retrieve the correct shoes. Imagine my surprise when he merely shrugged, remarked, “It’s a Prozac day,” and kept walking.

Shortly after I returned from Manhattan, I went to my doctor and obtained a prescription for Prozac. It’s hard to explain the difference antidepressants make. The change is relatively subtle. But one day, as a friend explained, you’ll be parked at a red light and out of the blue you’ll hear an inner voice remark, “I love my life.” And that’s exactly what happened. I realized that despite everything, I have had a most excellent life.

In other words, aside from that, for the most part, I’ve truly enjoyed the play.

What brought it to the forefront of my mind, is the decades-old foreshadowing of the Occupy Wall Street movement, in the guise of disgruntled Americans everywhere who were encouraged by a crazy news anchor to get up out of their seats, open a window and shout “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Without giving too much away, a one on one speech delivered at the end has stuck with me these many years. Essentially, it was about how naïve it was to think borders and countries had anything to do with anything. The world is managed by a few multi-national corporations who have found that exploiting we humans’ penchant for patriotism, country/race identification, religious affiliation and so forth was a tried and true way of distracting the citizens of the world from realizing what was really going on.

I’m not quite ready to declare myself an adherent of the conspiracy theory, though I confess I am intrigued by those secret societies, the Freemasons, Templars, Illuminati, and so forth. And I certainly wouldn’t turn down an invitation to the annual Bilderberg conference.

In spite of my nearly complete ignorance about economic theory(ies), or perhaps because of it, a few days ago, I arrived at what I believe would solve many, if not all,  of America’s economic woes. As has recently come to the forefront, in 1819, the United States Supreme Court decided the first in a long line of cases detailing the notion of “corporate personhood.” In that regard, I propose treating them as such when it comes to paying income tax. I realize this would also probably entail a review and adjustment of existing loopholes.

On a related matter, I am totally on board with instituting a flat tax. I’m confident IBM’s Watson could come up with the percentage everyone would need to pay to meet the present budgetary needs and reduce the deficit. I would also favor determining what threshold amount of income would trigger the tax. No one, rich or poor, corporate or otherwise, would pay any tax on that amount. I have to believe that if IBM’s Watson were enlisted to run the numbers we would see this was, indeed, a viable alternative.

What’s wrong with this picture? The corporations would never stand for it. They would simply move offshore and outsource even more than they do now. The United States would become a “bedroom nation.” But I can dream, can’t I? Imagine.

I take note of new words that are created to give meaning to new phenomena. Sometimes I come up with a word that I think might be a “new” word. Years ago I came up with “observative.” The other day I used “misclick” to explain a misdirected email. I checked the OED and it wasn’t there. Then I checked the Urban Dictionary and there it was, defined (split infinitive and all) as “to accidently click on the wrong Internet link.”

And then, of course, there is the practice of nouning and verbing. More often than not, I find this practice irritating. I cringe when people talk about “journaling-” – though I have no objection to “googling.” I leave for another day an examination of why I am of two minds concerning this subject. On a related matter, I find dropping articles, and thereby turning a noun into a proper noun particularly grating.  I want people to say they are “in a relationship” not “in Relationship.” Still, in terms of immortality, striving to have one’s name turned into what I guess, in such a case would be described as becoming a proper Proper noun, or a verb, is certainly one way to go.  The ultimate, of course, would be for one’s name to become a meme. (Visually this happens when someone becomes a widely recognized spokesman for a brand – for how many of you did “Mr. Whipple” just come to mind?) There I go, showing my age again. How about the Progressive Gecko?

For those of you who are wondering, I intend to get to a point. To do that, I need to tell you a little bit about my big brother John. First and foremost, he was a gifted musician. If he heard a song, he could play it in four-part harmony, in any key. There were certain songs, however, he simply refused to play. Feelings comes immediately to mind. (For me, it’s Fernando.) There were several others that he also considered unworthy, such as Memories from Cats. If someone requested one of these songs, he would instead play a different one from the same musical that, while less popular, he considered acceptable.  Sondheim and Porter were his favorites, Andrew Lloyd Weber, an irritation.

John’s musical opinions translated into other aspects of his life. He simply had exquisite taste and a dislike for the mob mentality. He had an uncanny ability to spot a trend that by the time it went viral (long before “it went viral” had become an everyday expression, or any expression at all), he had been there, done that and either incorporated it into his life or dismissed it. He was the first in our small town of 2500 to wear blue jeans – Levi’s to be precise. By the time everyone began sporting Polo Ponies, he, while still appreciative of Ralph Lauren, would only wear Polo clothes that incorporated a Polo pony anywhere but on one’s upper left side. He considered Polo Sport a travesty. His first cat couldn’t just be a cat, or even just any old purebred feline, she was a Cornish Rex. (Though later in life he acquired a huge orange tabby named Oscar whom he also loved and adored.)

Ultimately some would say he was a snob. For me, the better word is “snobbish,” and I think he might even agree with that description. His snobbishness was authentic, grounded in conscious consideration and arrived at independent from the crowd. And there were constants that remained favored even after popularization, Gucci and Tiffany’s for example. He was discerning and just somehow “knew,” appreciating quality and excellence wherever and no matter where he found it.

And so to the point, because for me, it’s all about the destination, progress be damned. For that matter, any journey be damned unless there is one, a destination that is. These days, I spend a fair amount of time listening to the songs I’ve transferred to my iPod Touch (by album, alphabetically). The number of songs in my iTunes folder now total in the several thousands, taking up nearly 45 gigs of disk space.  I often “thrill” to certain songs that I find particularly fine. Sometimes, in the midst of listening, I experience a flush of shame interrupting this delight – Sarah Brightman is perhaps the best example – as the realization dawns that I’m loving a song which my brother would dismiss out of hand.

One day I realized there was an already existing word, the definition of which could be expanded to give a name to this feeling. I still remember when an old friend (maybe you even know who you are) first used the word and explained the meaning. Now, when I experience the sensation of enjoying something of which I know my brother would disapprove, I tell myself I’m feeling Bourgeois. 

Much of the movie is a gripping thriller, even though some of the early scenes are just a tad far-fetched. For instance, each of the guys and Girlfriend has an enormous backpack. Besides a sleeping bag and maybe a change of clothes, what else could be in those packs?  I’d bet on food. Even so, there’s a scene where Girlfriend catches two fish while Serial Killer first lights, and then, given the smoke, kicks dirt on a fire. In response, girlfriend plops down and tears into one of the raw fish. Serial Killer refuses her offer of the other fish. He refuses. She shrugs. The implication is that Serial Killer will go hungry. Cracks in the foundation of suspended disbelief.

Long story short, Girlfriend and Serial Killer eventually break through the trees and there’s the highway. Girlfriend manages to flag down a truck, but alas, Serial Killer catches up and we watch all three of them drive off toward the border. Later, the truck is found with Dead Trucker, and, of course, no sign of Serial Killer or Girlfriend. Here’s where suspended disbelief begins to crumble. Once Serial Killer’s made it to the highway, he no longer needs Girlfriend. His pattern has always been to ruthlessly kill anyone he no longer needs.  Along with Dead Trucker, she should have been toast.

I kept thinking about the film after it ended. I kept thinking long enough to realize that the pursuit of Serial Killer was totally unnecessary and would never have happened in “real life.” Here’s what Mr. Twenty-Years’ Experience FBI Guy knew at the time he and Boyfriend took off to track the expedition. He knew Serial Killer was among five guys who were being led by Girlfriend to a lodge in the forest. He knew, or could readily find out, where this lodge was located. The group was not a hunting trip because no guns were evident, and one of Serial Killer’s companions expressed surprise when Serial Killer’s handgun accidentally fell out of his pack.

I leave for another day what realistic steps may have been taken to attempt rescue all of the members of the expedition. Without giving it all away, only Serial Killer and Girlfriend arrive at the lodge. They had spent at least one night in the open.  During that time, I’m assuming FBI Guy would have obtained photos of all the party members, and, while he might not know what Serial Killer looked like, he could be identified through the process of elimination.

So, you give the photos to your best sniper, he boards a helicopter that makes  a wide berth around the search area so as to avoid detection. Sniper will be dropped off somewhere near the lodge, he’ll locate a desirable vantage point and don his snow camouflage. Sniper waits until Serial Killer and Girlfriend appear. As they approach the lodge entrance, Sniper blows Serial Killer away. Occam’s Razor.

I wish I could believe
My death would present an opportunity
For God to tell me Why.
A Why might help –
Not really.

I see him
Sauntering down the street
Dressed in his favorite best
Internally warmed by his last martini
Against the autumn chill.

Moving toward the fateful encounter
“Fateful” because a minute,
Perhaps even seconds,
On either side
And he walks on, undead.

Instead, he slaps at the vehicle
Driven by a Black, Swedish Rapper.
You read right,
A Black Swedish Rapper,
Driving

Not a beloved ’65 fastback ‘stang,
Or a ’67 Cobra,
Or a ’70 Chevelle,
But a rental
A rental.

And so they watched
As the Black Swedish Rapper
Emerged from the rental and
Killed the Music.
The rest is silence.

– cko, August 30, 2011

– cko

Okay, how to proceed from here. If I write these pages in cursive pen to paper, folks will have a difficult time reading them. So, I would need to translate into typewritten pages. I don’t have time for such nonsense, but perhaps Christine would consent to do so. I could also dictate, but again transcription impediments. Christine, again. Besides, while there may not be a lot of difference between pen to paper and keyboard to screen, I think there may be more of a difference between voice to tape. I don’t know why exactly, but it’s a filter thing. To write or type, the words must form written symbols. No need for such translation with speech until a later time.

I can see one major difference right now between cursive and type. I make a number of errors when typing that I would not make writing, which does interrupt the flow of thought. By how much though, I’m not sure. I am, after all, capable, though not as much as before, of “holding that thought.” For the moment, I guess I’m inclined to type, unless I see a great difference between the two. I will however continue alternating for a bit to see if there’s a real qualitative (as opposed to quantitative) difference. It is nice, though, to use my retractable fountain pen. It writes smooth and silent.

I awoke to rain this morning. The sky was almost uniformly gray with no blue sky or sunshine in sight. It’s brightening now, with some cloud definition. The rain stopped a while back. Sigh. It was dark enough that the street lights came on in the middle of the afternoon. I need to put more descriptive passages in the novel. Or do I. Are they just filler, or do they serve a function? Well, they probably set the atmosphere the writer wishes to convey to the audience. But, if one writes that it rains, then what else is needed? Well, rain is different with respect, for instance of the intensity and duration. If one of the goals of writing is to create an almost cinemagraphic effect, i.e., to enable the reader to see the action of the book with the mind’s eye, then perhaps it’s important, but only if one wants to have the reader’s eye more attuned to the writer’s eye. So, one can write that it was raining, and the reader can pick what kind of rain. Would it be possible to write around the rain such that the conditions are suggested by the action, though not described? Implicit vs. explicit surroundings. But that supposes that the conditions of the surrounding are somehow informed by the action. How stupid is that? It’s raining, therefore one acts in such and such a way, when, indeed one could act in such and such a way whether it is raining or not.

I know there is a convention where the surrounding conditions are written to reflect the inner weather of a character. I don’t want to do that. I will write of murder in the sunshine. But that’s sort of unnatural, too, since murder seldom occurs in the sunshine. If most murders are “red ball” murders (passion killing) or manslaughter, are we as human beings more passionate or more careless in the dark. Or is [it] that as a general rule more drug and/or alcohol use and abuse occurs at night? So, it is not necessarily human nature to kill, but human nature somehow altered by chemicals. And what, if anything, can be inferred from that?

My blinds are closed, thereby preventing me from looking west. I think the sun has broken through. Heavy, heavy sigh. But, would living where it rains more really make a difference on who I am? Are there rain people or sun people or snow people? Well, there’s supposedly SAD, but not everyone suffers from it. Assuming one doesn’t, then what, if any, difference does it make except in terms of personal preference? I almost wrote, “what, if anything,” which would then be followed by “makes a difference.” It appears the two sentences have the same meaning. Aesthetically, I prefer, “[w]hat, if any difference . . .”. But they are the same because “it” and “thing” are synonymous. I wish I’d been sober for my logic class. I wish I’d taken linguistics. I wish I understood the language of mathematics and music. But choices must be made. Time, for me is more finite than for others. First things first. Write the book. Then decide where to go from there . . .

End, 3:35 p.m.