Tag Archives: sociology

Humpty Dumptytime

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming around.  I’m hoping you’re all getting your ducks in a row to put whatever lousy issues you’ve got to rest, come midnight.  Beginning one minute afterward we’ve all got to start the serious business of trying to live with all that behind us.  The Coincidence Coordinators have a lot in store for each of us and they don’t want any of it getting bogged down in tanglefootedness left over from yesteryear.

Some of you probably remember that bottle of Jack Daniels Black Label,

Juggling the Possibilities.

 I wrote about it November 17, 2011,

“I finished off most of this bottle of Jack Daniels on December 31, 1999, while I was sitting around listening on the short wave radio to Y2K not happening, first in New Zealand, then Australia, then places further west until it got to me, where it happened well enough to make up for those other places it didn’t.

“But as you can see, there was some left in the bottle when Y2K got to me.  I resolved to hold it back until something else happened.  I’ve had it sitting over there on the microwave collecting dust for several years, threatening to celebrate various New Year and Thanksgivings and I-don’t-know-whatalls.  I’d had it in the back of my mind lately I’d do my 70th birthday with it, then slid the clock backward and thought maybe my 69th here in a few days.”

Fact is, that bottle qualifies as an open container.  I can’t travel with it in the RV.  So this evening I’m going to put on some good music and sip that Jack Daniels to death celebrating all the Humpty Dumpties in my 2012.

The Great Speckled Bird: Respecting our Betters

The Great Speckled Bird went off maybe in July to wherever chickens go when they die, and later in the year I Humpty Dumptied my contracts with the hens and other roosters.  [Sip anticipated] 

I terminated my contract with Shiva The Cow Cat.  [Sip anticipated]

There’s this:

Roof and Chimney Leaks — White Trash Repairs

But we didn’t reach a consensus, the felines etc. on the matter of roof repairs and leaks.  Shiva the cow-cat argues, “What the hell!  Here’s a perfect spot for both those indoor cats in a thunderstorm.  What’s the big deal?  If they don’t like it throw them outdoors with Tabby and me.

I’m sick and tired of all the age discrimination around here in favor of geriatric cats.” [Sip anticipated]

And of course, the Humpty Dumpty trees. [Sip anticipated]

Men's ThermoPlus Extreme Boot Liner

http://www.sorel.com/Men%27s-ThermoPlus-Extreme-Boot-Liner/NU1490,default,pd.html

I’ve used my Sorel boot liners several years as thermal house shoes when it’s cold, and they’ve begun to fray.  Looked up the price of replacing them and discovered it’s $45, so I went to work on the seams and edges with super glue.

No Humpty Dumpty for them.  But I’ll sip to them anyway if there’s any left.

As for Shiva, she’s doing well up there, happy.  Jeanne and I have a ritual of talking on the phone, speaker phone on on her end.  Shiva sits on her shoulder, purrs, slobbers, and rubs her face against the phone.

I’ll sip to a happy ending, a new adventure, and the three remaining felines with active contracts.

And wish things equally good for you.  [Final sip]

Old Jules

Christmas morning assumptions to all

Old Sol

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I assume all of you are responding to the Universe in whatever ways suit you best this morning, and I wish that on you with profound enthusiasm and cheer.

For those of you who haven’t noticed, things have changed a lot here on earth since last Christmas.  For instance, the barycenters of earth and moon:

                                   Earth                                 
    
                     Barycentric Equatorial Positions                    
                    Mean Equator and Equinox of J2000.0                  
    
   Date        Time               X                Y                Z  
        (UT1) 
             h  m   s             AU               AU               AU
2012 Dec 25 00:00:00.0    -  0.059985055   +  0.898520188   +  0.389478777

                                   Earth                                 
    
                     Barycentric Equatorial Positions                    
                    Mean Equator and Equinox of J2000.0                  
    
   Date        Time               X                Y                Z  
        (UT1) 
             h  m   s             AU               AU               AU
2011 Dec 25 00:00:00.0    -  0.048871098   +  0.900279920   +  0.390286717

                                   Moon                                  
    
                     Barycentric Equatorial Positions                    
                    Mean Equator and Equinox of J2000.0                  
    
   Date        Time               X                Y                Z
        (UT1) 
             h  m   s             AU               AU               AU
2012 Dec 25 00:00:00.0    -  0.058478965   +  0.900591248   +  0.390372982

                                   Moon                                  
    
                     Barycentric Equatorial Positions                    
                    Mean Equator and Equinox of J2000.0                  
    
   Date        Time               X                Y                Z
        (UT1) 
             h  m   s             AU               AU               AU
2011 Dec 25 00:00:00.0    -  0.048617062   +  0.897988672   +  0.389385589

Nothing to be alarmed about, at least not yet, but still something to keep in mind.  I’m a lot more concerned about Old Sol and that Frosty The Snowman carrot he’s got for a nose at the moment.  That can’t bode well for any of us.

However, on a more cheerful note.  Or less ominous, anyway.

I just got around to opening my latest Hawaii KONATE bulletin from December 19, expecting to find out what time it was somewhere sometime.  Instead, I got this:

human clock

time greetings

I’m not certain what to make of it.  The time might be ten minutes until twelve somewhere, or  what?  Ten pm?

Then there’s this thing declaring time is valuable and what I ought to do with mine.  What the hell do these people know about time?  If it’s so valuable, what the hell are they doing lying around pretending to be a clock?

Here I was wanting to know what time it was in Hamburg sometime last week and might be in Peking day-after-tomorrow.  Last thing I wanted Christmas morning was a lot of cryptic meaning telling me what to do with my time and people lying around somewhere sometime on an upside-down clock.

But I hope you’ll all respond to it in whatever barycentric way you choose.

The New Old Jules and the Enlightened Cats

Wishing you whatever kind of Christmas you want for yourselves

la cantina antlered head 2

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I sat in a Mexican food cafe in Snora the other morning chowing down on a buffet breakfast I hadn’t asked ahead of time how much would cost.  After all, how much could they charge for a buffet breakfast, anyway?

Well, that’s another story.  What I was going to say was that the table next to me had five men having breakfast together.  Obviously something they did frequently, judging from the conversation.  None of them gave off the physical aura of having missed many big breakfasts for a while.

But these were serious, corn fed Texas men wearing cowboy hats and gimme caps with an air of having shiny new pickups with dual wheels out in the parking lot and weighty matters on their minds.  Men of substance and strong opinions about what’s wrong in this world and how to go about solving it.

Men, I thought as I eavesdropped on them, who wouldn’t sit still for someone telling them what kind of Christmas or New Year to have, because these men were capable of figuring it out for themselves.

I learned a lot as I listened to them telling one another things the others weren’t listening to while they waited for openings to allow themselves to tell the others things they wouldn’t listen to.

But it was all right, because they were all saying pretty much the same things, anyway.

So I waited in a state of fingernail-chewing anticipation to find out whether one of them would slip up and tell the others what kinds of Christmas to have, causing a confrontation, a fist-fight, maybe a gunfight out in the parking lot.  I hurried my meal so’s if I had to duck under a table I’d have already packed my gut with as much as time allowed.

However, strangely enough, they all stirred the remains of their meals around on their plates, finished off whatever each had to say that the others wouldn’t hear, and almost in unison, ordered one another to have a Merry Christmas.  No steely eye squints.  No, “Don’t you tell ME what kind of Christmas to have, Charlie!”

Everyone made allowances, I suppose, for the fact it was breakfast ending and they had serious matters to attend and not enough time to do it.  No time for a fist fight before getting on with it.  Or maybe they just didn’t hear what the others said, as they’d done throughout the meal.  Didn’t realize someone told them what kind of Christmas to have.

However, after thinking it and talking it over to the cats, I think my own approach is to mildly suggest that you readers have whatever sort of Christmas you want to have.  But if you choose not to, it’s okay.  I’m not insisting.

The New Old Jules and the Enlightened Cats

Tilting Windmills Out The Window of an RV

Ira Ann Windmills2

Hi readers.

Once these damned cats croak I have one project left to complete before I fall into a burning ring of fire Johnny Cashwise.  I want to find a hubcap to use for a helmet, a garbage can lid for a shield, and a long piece of 2 inch cast iron pipe and open a can of whupass on one of those windmills they’re foresting the plains of West Texas with.

Not to suggest I have anything against them.  In fact, I respect them and whatever engineer with an Asian surname designed them.

No, I want to prove to myself and to future generations of mankind that whatever else Cervantes might have thought, he was wrong about windmills and their place in the overall scheme of things as it applies to the human condition when it’s challenged by a man of vision.

And I’m just the man to do it.

The New Old Jules

La Cantina

Hi readers.

La Cantina Entry

A man who reads this blog sent me an email a while back offering to allow me to hook up and park mi casa where he lives in far-west Texas a night, or more if we found ourselves simpatico.  So after the WalMart parking lot in Midland, we trucked up there and said hello.

La Cantina bar

Eddie and Val, their names are.  Fine, fine, fine people.  The Coincidence Coordinators blessed me once again with an unexpected shot of reminder I’m the luckiest man alive.

I’ll digress a moment and suggest you notice the birdnests on the vigas and the droppings on the orno below.  This is the entryway into the section of their home Eddie built where they evidently spend most of their time and entertain guests.

La Cantina Fireplace

I spent a few days parked in their yard, hours of every day submerged in conversation with Eddie, Val, various relatives and neighbors, digesting my life, the flood of new learning I was doing, and a lot else, thanks mainly to Val, who was forever worrying whether I could drink some more coffee, eat some more of the fare she constantly provided, putting more wood on the fire.

La Cantina deer head

Val’s an ex-school teacher, biologist, and interesting lady.  Eddie’s an electrical engineer who spent much of his lifetime travelling all over the planet, first as a private contractor, then in a corporate capacity, then decided screw-it.  I ain’t doing this no more.

La Cantina hatrack

I met a lot of interesting people, heard a lot of intriguing world-views in that cantina while the wind howled outdoors.  I’ll be telling you more of that later.

But one question I was asked over and over during my stay.  “What the hell are you doing here?”

Soaking it up,” is the only answer comes immediately to mind.

Maybe I’m working up to continuing wossname, John Ernesto Hemingway Steinbeck, Travels With Charlie – The Brave New World For Whom The Bell Tolls.

The New Old Jules

Where Were You When The World Ended?

When the world ended

The End Of The World by Archibald MacLeish

Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe,
And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb
Quite unexpectedly to top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing — nothing at all.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.   I’m the more profoundly enlightened, severely evolved creature who used to be Old Jules before the Mayan calendar ended.

As for the Mayan calendar, I think we have to assume the ancient Mayans were referring to Greenwich time, midnight.  I can’t see any way around it.  It all had to begin somewhere and I think the ancient Mayans were sufficiently wise to begin it in a place where everyone in the future would be able to agree when it happened.

For the cats and me, that was Big Lake, Texas.  A city park there with dozens of RV connections and three free overnight connections, according to information online.  But when the Mayan calendar ended I happened to be walking on the pavement near a dim sign I’ll paraphrase as saying, “Welcome to Big Lake overnight RV connections.  $15 per night, enjoy, stay as long as you wish and come back often.”

Big Lake Park hookups

As the Coincidence Coordinators would have it, I’d been there a couple of hours, trying out a new harness and leash I’d bought in the Walmart store in Midland, Texas, on each of the cats.  I’d noticed I was the target of repeated scrutiny by a Big Lake City Police officer driving slowly by, me smiling and half-waving as he went by.  Him not smiling, not waving.

Big Lake Park

Then, cats all battened back down into the RV, I took a longer walk and found myself more informed about the Post Mayan calendar calendar and surviving the coming times with the least possible bullshit for all concerned.

So the cats and I celebrated the birth of the new era by topping off the gas tank and heading off down the road where the glow of headlights might shine on someplace free to sleep off the emerging shock of sudden evolution.

Ended up in a Rest Area somewhere between Ozona and Snora around 10:00 pm the Day the World Ended.

I’ve some retrospectives about the people and places of the previous several days, but I’m shooting this off just to suggest if you’re ever looking for a place to spend a hassle-free night parked free with cats purring on your chest, stay out of Big Lake, Texas.

But I’ve digressed.  About that photo at the top:

Very few white men have ever witnessed what honest-to-goodness, eat-it-down-to-the-rocks over-grazing looks like unless they’ve visited the Navajo Reservation in the four-corners area of New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Arizona. 

Or Texas.

The New Old Jules

Old Dogs, New Tricks and Kick Starting Pesky Realities

Mechanized Morton Salt

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

My friend, Rich, is going down to the jailhouse in Gastonia, NC, today with Lisa.  That’s where they do weddings in Gastonia, which I think is fairly cool in its own way.  I might be tempted to marry again my ownself if I could do it in a jailhouse.  But the places I’m likely to be they probably do it someplace else.

At least I hope so.

But I’m tickled pea green for old Rich, and Lisa too.  Good people kicking holes in the future, driving new tunnels into places neither of them could have gone by themselves.

When I first became acquainted with Rich I’d have never dreamed something of this sort would emerge among his lifetime pathways.  He was an angry, bitter man carrying around all manner of rages left over from the Vietnam War jungles, losing a son in an accident a decade-or-so earlier, a wife working up to dying as a result of environmental issues.

As nearly as I could tell, Rich was a cauldron seething with more things to be angry about than a person would be likely to turn loose of during whatever he could squeeze in as a rest-of-his-life.  Rich and I would talk on the phone for hours at a time and during those first years after he became a widower the experience was dizzying for me.  At times he teetered on the edge of a depression I was concerned he mightn’t climb back out of.

After I’d hang up I’d have to run through more-than-usual gratitude affirmations, forgiveness affirmations, grab a cat to scratch behind the ears, and in a pinch, do an EFT-like tapping ritual to get my feet back on the ground where I wanted them.

But gradually Rich pulled himself into a different place and the rage slowly dissipated, peeled away in layers, seemed to me.  I suspect gratitude affirmations might have been part of how he did it, but taken in time-lapse head photographs within my mind it seems both unlikely and profound.

Then he met Lisa and bubbled up into being an old codger so happy with himself and his life maybe he belonged in the jailhouse.  Anything makes a man that happy is almost certainly illegal in the US these days.

So here’s me, shooting some gratitude affirmations to the Universe for Rich and Lisa.  And hoping they don’t keep them inside too long.

Old Jules

The Burden of Guilt – “When It Rains It Pours”

when it rains

Hi again readers.

One of the things I like least about Christmas is the fact it brings out so much dialogue about how we ought to devote ourselves to making it better for those less fortunate than ourselves.  Got an email just a minute ago someone posted somewhere talking about it again.

I agree entirely with the sentiment, but it’s a killer for a man [the only one] such as myself.  I’m the most fortunate man on the planet.

So how the hell am I supposed to go about doing it? 

Everyone on the planet is less fortunate than me.  Should I start by figuring out a way to make life better for wossname, Donald Trump?  The Dallas Cowboys and those who watch them?  The American Association of Non-RV Owners?  The Federation of Human Beings Alienated From Cats?

I ain’t giving what few cats I have left to someone, no matter how unfortunate they might be.  Okay, I’m a stingyguts, but there you are.

I’m at a complete loss here, and the guilt is overwhelming.

Old Jules – Headed for the finish line

Searching for The Lost Granfalloons* – Mine

FAST-GROWING SUNSPOT: Barely visible when the weekend began, sunspot AR1619 has blossomed into a large active region more than three times as wide as Earth.  So far the growing sunspot has not produced any significant flares, but the quiet is unlikely to continue if its expansion continues apace. Fast-changing magnetic fields on the sun have a tendency to reconnect and erupt. NOAA forecasters estimate a 20% chance of M-class solar flares during the next 24 hours.  http://spaceweather.com/

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably been watching SS 1619 and wondering what the hell is going on with Old Sol. Likely you’re wondering, as I am, why he persists in blessing us with all those weird smiley faces with Errol Flynn mustaches.  Wondering what he’s got up his sleeve.

I have the advantage on most of you because I’ve been messing around with rare earth magnets, glueing them behind cabinet doors in the RV to keep them closed.  So rapidly changing magnetic fields are fresh on my mind, along with the wrinkled, crispy fingertips acquired by fastening them in place with super glue.

Which has created a loose granfalloon Old Sol and I both belong to.

But I’m what most people would call a real cool guy, full of compassion and sensitivity for all you who aren’t in a granfalloon with Old Sol right now.  So I’m not going to arouse your fears and spoil your Thanksgiving holidays by telling you what he might have up his sleeve.

One of the shortcomings, in fact, with granfalloons is that it might be anything, anyway.  Your guess is as good as mine.

But I’ve digressed.  My main purpose in posting today is to tell you about some other granfalloons of my past are cropping up hither thither and yon in my sinookas**.  For reasons I dassn’t speculate about, a good many of them involve a search I used to do for a lost gold mine.  Strangers from hell to breakfast are sending me emails wanting to talk to me about it, hinting around that, though they haven’t been within a thousand miles of that country, they know where it is.  Or might be.

Some granfalloons just don’t let go once they get their teeth locked into your leg.

So maybe  all this busy, busy, busy*** going on around here right now is about me going out and searching for the Lost Granfalloons – Mine.

Not that I plan to bank any money on it.  I’m spang out of money until my SS pension check arrives.

Old Jules

* granfalloon – a false karass; i.e., a group of people who imagine they have a connection that does not really exist. An example is “Hoosiers“; Hoosiers are people from Indiana, and Hoosiers have no true spiritual destiny in common, so they really share little more than a name. Another example is a Cornellian, a student or graduate of Cornell University.

**sinookas – the tendrils of one’s life.

***Busy, busy, busy” – what a Bokononist whispers whenever he thinks about how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.

Cats Cradles, Communities, Hungers and Bokononism

Good morning readers.  Thanks for the visit.

Cats Cradle

I’m rapidly developing an overweening pride in this.  15-18 pounds of cat slept on it last night, and it’s no worse for the wear.

But, I’ve digressed.

Maybe it was inevitable.  While I was doing other things over the past weeks my mind began toying around with abstractions involving communities and the attraction human beings have for them.  I’d been reading some Jack London and found myself sticking pieces of his thinkings off in the side of my mind, observations about the packages of community he experienced and wrote about.

But on the side Slab City sneaked into my mind occasionally, and the attraction I’ve no intention to indulge, that remains despite my intentions. 

Or the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous RV and van dwellers are going to stage in Quartzite, Arizona in January.  http://cheapgreenrvliving.com/Rendezvous.html 

Evidently thousands of RVs and van dwellers converge on the spot every January for a big RV show, and the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous takes place concurrently.    50-100 people who live in RVs or vans or wish to live in them, and feel the need to be part of a community of a sort they didn’t find surrounded by RVs, campers and vans in RV parks, State Parks, or in National Forests.

Are the people occupying those dots down there different than the ones you’d meet if you went knocking on doors at the Take It Easy Trailer Court in Kerrville, Texas?  I dunno.

But something in my mind connected the concept of community and the human need for it with Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and Bokononism:

Bokononism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bokononism is a fictional religion invented by Kurt Vonnegut and practiced by many of the characters in his novel Cat’s Cradle. Many of the sacred texts of Bokononism were written in the form of calypsos.

Bokononism is based on the concept of foma, which are defined as harmless untruths. A foundation of Bokononism is that the religion, including its texts, is formed entirely of lies; however, one who believes and adheres to these lies will have peace of mind, and perhaps live a good life. The primary tenet of Bokononism is to “Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.”

Bokononism encompasses a number of unique concepts expressed in the San Lorenzan dialect:[1]

  • boko-maru – the supreme act of worship of the Bokononists, which is an intimate act consisting of prolonged physical contact between the naked soles of the feet of two persons.
  • “Busy, busy, busy” – what a Bokononist whispers whenever he thinks about how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.
  • “Calypso” – song from The Books of Bokonon. Eight such songs are cited in Cat’s Cradle, some of them are presented with a title (i.e. On Dynamic Tension or The Boko-maru Calypso) and others are presented with a number (i.e. The Hundred-and-nineteenth Calypso). The Calypsos illustrate various aspects of the teachings of Bokonon.
  • duffle – the destiny of thousands of people placed on one stuppa
  • duprass – a karass that consists of only two people. This is one of the few kinds of karass about which one can have any reliable knowledge. The two members of a duprass live lives that revolve around each other, and are therefore often married. “A true duprass can’t be invaded, not even by children born of such a union.” The novel cites the example of “Horlick Minton, the New American Ambassador to the Republic of San Lorenzo, and his wife, Claire.” The two members of a duprass always die within a week of each other.
  • foma – harmless untruths; lies that, if used correctly, can be useful.
  • granfalloon – a false karass; i.e., a group of people who imagine they have a connection that does not really exist. An example is “Hoosiers“; Hoosiers are people from Indiana, and Hoosiers have no true spiritual destiny in common, so they really share little more than a name. Another example is a Cornellian, a student or graduate of Cornell University.
  • kan-kan – the instrument which brings a person into his or her karass
  • karass – group of people who, often unknowingly, are working together to do God’s will. The group can be thought of as the fingers that support a cat’s cradle.
  • “Now I will destroy the whole world” – What a Bokononist says before committing suicide.
  • pool-pah – wrath of God or “shit storm”
  • saroon – to acquiesce to a vin-dit
  • sin-wat – a person who wants all of somebody’s love for him/herself
  • sinookas – the tendrils of one’s life
  • stuppa – a fogbound child (i.e. an idiot)
  • vin-dit – a sudden shove in the direction of Bokononism
  • wampeter – the central theme or purpose of a karass. Each karass has two wampeters, one waxing and one waning.
  • wrang-wrang – someone who steers a Bokononist away from a line of speculation by reducing that line, with the example of the wrang-wrang’s own life, to an absurdity.
  • Zah-mah-ki-bo – fate, inevitable destiny

Brought me to realize these cats around here are all Bokononists.  They’ve been sneaking around here converting me to their religion all these years without me knowing it, superimposing their viewpoints over my natural ones.

Forcing me to have a community with them.

But at least I don’t have to go to Quartzite, Arizona to have a community.  Bokononism is a big step up in life if I can look around inside the RV and find a community without having to go all the way to Quartzite, or Slab City, AZ.

Old Jules