Author Archives: mandala56

So, when he fled his apprenticeship and ended up in a territory predominantly Catholic, the Church sent him off to Turin to be instructed, examined by the Inquisition, prepared for conversion, where he arrived dead broke.

Rousseau wasn’t overjoyed when he entered the hospice for catechumens for instruction in his new faith and they double locked a large barred gate behind him after he entered.  “This introduction struck me as more imposing than agreeable,” he remembers.

He describes the room where he meets his fellows:  “In this assembly room were four or five frightful villains – my fellow students – who seemed to be rather the devil’s constables than aspirants to the honor of sons of God.  Two of these rascals were Slavonians, who called themselves Jews, or Moors, and as they confessed to me, spent their life in wandering through Spain and Italy embracing Christianity and submitting to be baptized where they found it worth their while.”

Meanwhile, the women enter:  “Through this door our sisters entered, catechumens who like myself, were to be born again, not by means of baptism, but by a solemn abjuration of their faith.  They were certainly the greatest sluts and most disgusting vagabonds who ever contaminated the sheepfold of the Lord.”

After sufficient time of being instructed, sexually assaulted, vilified for reporting it, Rousseau and his fellow pupils are accepted into the arms of Catholicism and he again finds himself without funds and without a means of supporting himself.

I’ll probably describe more of this sixteen-year-old and his trials alone in a strange country before all the excitement of the French Revolution and Napoleon I got everything wockyjawed, sometime later.  But I began this entry intending to tell a couple of his anecdotes a bit later and became so submerged in nuts and bolts of his conversion to Catholicism I’ve lost my direction.

Guess I’ll have to tell you another time about his thoughts on taxes and his innocent involvement with a Greek ‘monk’ traveling across Europe selling the snake-oil of restoration of the Holy Sepulcher to the royalty in each country.  When they encountered someone at court who’d been to Jerusalem Rousseau narrowly avoided sharing a dungeon cell with the Greek.  Fortunately, probably because of his youth, they believed the truth.  Namely that he believed the Greek was legitimate and that his role as interpreter was played in good faith.

But enough for now.

Jack

I’m a good old rebel

And that’s just what I am.

For what you’re calling freedom

I just don’t give a damn.

We lost the war for freedom

And maybe it’s all done,

But I don’t want no pardon

For anything I’ve done.

Evening blogsters:

Not to be outdone by RickG., and Excalibur, I dug around in the boxes and closets, finally brought out a 1995 vintage IBM Aptiva with Windows 95 on it.  I decided because of RickG’s problems with getting his comp corrupted by Internet travels that I wanted a machine dedicated strictly to work on the numbers theory, but which won’t ever plug into a phone line.

I found everything, I should have said, but the various cables and power cords to attach it to itself and the wall outlet.

I’ve got Office 97, and I’m feeling the need to figure out MS Access so’s to be able to chase draw histories and draw dates, keeping them intact while I combine them with moon phases, moonrise/moonset, percentages of lunar illumination, and the east/west tracks of various celestial bodies on the days of the draws.

This old comp that thinks it belongs to a community of computers and needs to feast on cookies, email messages, spyware et al, just hasn’t got enough moxie in the hard drive to have room left for numbers work without crashing all the time.

So I’m going to time travel with my numbers back to a time when men were men and women were glad of it.  A simple time when Americans were an honest, courageous, non-computer literate agrarian folk who hadn’t yet gotten as many piercings as they wanted and the tattoos all said, “Mom”.  (Except the one belonging to Little Egypt, “She had a picture of a cowboy tattooed on her spine saying, ‘Phoenix, Arizona, 1949′”.)

No more of this brave new world of the 21st Century for the Unified Random Numbers Theory.  That way, if this one I’m typing on loses radio contact and vanishes from the radar screen I won’t lose everything I’ve done up until now.

Jack

I’m approaching the half-way point in the re-read of Rousseau’s Confessions.  That brings him up into his early 20s, (Circa 1730) and the tome’s getting somewhat more interesting.

Frankly, the main things interesting about the first 50-60 pages didn’t involve what he didn’t have to confess, so much as the descriptions of his travels, his experiences as an engraving apprentice who committed the criminal offense of running away after a series of severe beatings by the journeyman he was apprenticed to.

But, insofar as his early childhood and even later, he didn’t wrong severely enough to make any of his confessions minutely interesting.  He was a good kid.  Too good.

Part of what kept me reading through that involved seeing a man in his ’60s, whom I’d have thrown rocks at as a kid, reflecting on his childhood.

I’ll be writing more about Rousseau and his times, his travels, his loves, his countless follies and poignant observations that still apply to the human condition.

This entry’s just to give you fair warning.

Jack

Morning to you.

I think I’ve got my realities all sorted out from dream-stupidity an hour and a half later.  Enough, at least, to mind-wander through a blog entry, but not enough to begin anew working on the Unified Random-Numbers-Behavior-Theory.

Sorted out sufficiently for mundanities, but not enough for labor-thought.

For instance, this old abobe I live in is threatening to become a Communist.  I’ve lived here a couple of years now, and most of it was during the most severe drought anyone remembers, which is friendly times for an adobe.  Water is the enemy of any structure built of mud.

Anyway, the guy who originally built the place probably never dreamed it would still be standing a century later.  He thought he was building a milking barn.  His son, or maybe his grandson changed it to a turkey barn for a while, then later poured a thin veneer of concrete on the dirt floor and moved his daughter into it.  Eventually his grand-daughter and her husband used it as a residence while they were in college.

Afterward came four decades as a rent-house with erzatz maintenance, which no adobe will endure without protest.

By the time I moved in the interior adobe was in a state of last-ditch crumbling.  The vigas supporting the flat roof are visibly sagging.  I’ve jury-rigged enough wiring to allow lights in the bathroom, but things keep failing and it’s nip-and-tuck.  When I moved in they’d already condemned and shut down one of the two interior gas heaters, leaving no heat to the front of the house, but still allowing hot water to the tub/shower, sinks, but leaving things awfully wanting insofar as temperature.

The landlord’s a diplomat living somewhere in the Middle-East, married to the grand-daughter of the guy who converted the place from a barn.  He and his wife lived here when they were in college.  So they don’t want to hear about any kind of difficulties, deterioration.  They just want a rent deposit in their bank account every month.

The results of all that are becoming interesting.  I use a five-gallon propane bottle with a heater on top to heat the front of the house wintertime.  I locate and plug roof-leaks as best I can, and put pans under those I didn’t find last moisture-fall.  Which is further cause for melting in the structural adobe walls, as manifested in floor deltas of mud on the floor after every moisture event.

But recently, things got critical.  A major plumbing leak developed in the shower-tub, causing me to have to break out the adobe wall to get to it.  With the sound advice of RickG I tried a number of fixes, but they were all doomed to failure within a day or two, and the only way I could stop a constant water-flow was to cut off the water to the entire house.

Eventually, thanks to RickG, I isolated the plumbing to the tub and lost the water-availability there, but regained water to the remainder of the house, such as it is.

Which was a major inconvenience, hauling water from the kitchen to the tub five gallons at a time to bathe or do laundry.

Ha!  Solved it yesterday, the shower part, anyway!

I went down to Bernalillo figuring to resume my old Y2K cabin showering methodology.  Found a one-gallon pump-up insecticide sprayer for $5 Clearance Sale.  Now I can fill that with hot water, pump it up, hang it on the shower-head, and do showers again in a way that I don’t consider inferior to what I could get in this place before-plumbing-holocaust.

Laundry will still be a bit more difficult than before, but not so much as to be concerned about.

Life’s always been good, but it’s better again.

Much blessed,

Jack

(Edited in:  I never got around to describing that whammo red moonset just before daybreak this morning, nor to talking about wooly mammoths and the kind of winter all us old timers are thinking might be on the way.  I’ll maybe do it later.)

Hi:

Just got back from town, where I noticed again something that’s changed without me noting it.

Time was when Americans used bumper stickers to tell everything about themselves worth knowing.  It was a means of self-expression, definition.  People in the US used bumper stickers to describe the depth and breadth of their thought processes, their tastes in literature and philosophy, everything important about themselves.

“Pro- Choice”  was a telegraphic way to say, “I don’t have a fetus inside me, but if you are unlucky enough to have one I’m rabidly enthusiastic about your right to kill it and flush it down the toilet.”

“Right to Life” – translates:  “I think abortion’s a bad choice and I’d like to kill, or imprison anyone who believes differently. Knitting needles in the bathtub were good enough for grandma and they’re good enough for you.” 

“Support the Right to Keep and Bear Arms”  Translates:  “I like guns a bit overmuch.  I’ve got them and, while I’m a patriot, probably a flag waver and mindless supporter of any unconstitutional war our prez gets us into, I don’t want them taking away muh guns.”

Ban (Firearms)(Handguns)   Translates- “I am an idiot and don’t know it, but I want you to know it.” 

“Support Your Local Police”  Translates:  “I’m either a cop, or I drive 75mph through school zones and figure anything might help.  Either way, don’t trust me.”

“Save the Whales”  Translates:  “I’ve never seen a whale, but I’m hoping this bumper-sticker will help me meet people who have seen them.  Or meet females who haven’t seen whales, either, but who would like to talk about saving them over drinks and maybe have sex afterward.”

“Proud to be an American”  Translates:  “I’m glad I was lucky enough to be born in a country where everyone’s fat, has MasterCard, and can talk in English about what team won the game last night.  I’m most especially proud not to have been born somewhere full of non-English-speaking poor people who are hungry and get the bejesus bombed out of them all the time by us.”

GAY (Pride)(Marriage)(Rights)  Translates:  “I want to tell you what me (the owner of the bumper-sticker  – not, ‘me’, jack) and my friends do with our genitals.  I’m in your face about it because otherwise you mightn’t care.”

Anyway, that’s all over with.  Bumper-stickers are dying in favor of the less-literary, shorter-attention-span next-generation.

The brave new world has little magnetic ribbon icons made in China of all different colors.  Each color makes a pronouncement about what the car owner thinks will interest other Americans.  Yellow means support the war (as though a person could pay taxes but not support the troops and the war).  Etc etc etc.

I saw one today, a brown one of those ribbons turned upside-down so the ends stuck out like ears.

“Support Bambi” was printed in the center decorated with two doe-eyes with long lashes..

I’m sorry bumper-stickers went away before I got to see one saying, “You can take my pit-bull when you pry my cold, dead fingers from his snout.”

Jack

I forgot to mention my favorite bumper-sticker:
“WHITEY WILL PAY”

Interesting, the ways we discover things about ourselves reading forums on the Internet.

Things we know already but maybe hadn’t thought about.

I happened to read Excaliber’s post on one of the threads about how he’d lost a lot of his eyesight a decade or so ago and had to quit reading books.  I’m usually not much moved by forum posts, but that one managed to roll over me by surprise.  Shock and deep sadness until I self-examined why.

Purely an identification/selfish reaction.  I was imposing my own value system on Excaliber, whom I think might be the same person as Lantern used to be (which suspicion caused me to feel an empathy for him I mightn’t have if the same had been posted by a total stranger).

But Excaliber went on to remark on various aspects of the affliction.  He’s handling it a lot better than I might.

He mentioned he daydreams a lot, which I do also and call it meditating.  I used to soul travel a lot, as well, but the joy of it was too seductive.  I got so’s I’d rather be there than here, so I backed away from it most of the time.

Anyway, Excaliber’s post got me thinking about physical sensory input and what a blessing it is.  Even if we could remain alive it’s tempting to believe it wouldn’t be worth the trouble.  Until my mind came across a memory of a book I read once by Helen Keller.  Blind and deaf from birth, she grew to be a model of enthusiasm for life for a couple of generations of Americans.  She took the five-high hand she was dealt and made a straight flush of it without any thought of self-pity or complaint entering the game.

Admirable, but it would surely be a tough gig.

Jack

Cyrano, a man blessed with the heart of a poet, the courage, pride, physical prowess of a great warrior.  A man the sensitivity and intelligence to recognize the nose too large to qualify as a deformity is just a piece of life, a personal cross to bear without complaint.

A man stares at his nose.

Cyrano:  You may go— or tell me why you are staring at my nose

Meddler.  No.

Cyrano:  Does it astonish you?

Meddler:  Your Grace misunderstands my

Cyrano:  Is it long and soft and dangling like a trunk?

Meddler:  I never said

Cyrano:  Or crooked, like an owl’s beak?  A pimple ornaments the end of it?  Or a fly parading up and down?  What is the portent, this phenomenon?

Meddler:  I have been careful not to look

Cyrano:  And why, if you please?  It disgusts you then?  Does its color appear to you unwholesome?  Or is its form obscene?  Why assume this deprecating manner?  Perhaps you find it just a trifle large?

Meddler:  Not in the least.  Oh, no!  Small, very small, infinitisimol!

Cyrano:  What!  How?  You accuse me of absurdity?  Small-my nose?

Magnificent,, my nose!  You pug, you knob, you button head,

Know that I glory in this nose of mine,

For a great nose indicates a great man.

Genial, courteous, intellectual,

Virile, courageous- as I am- and such

As you, poor wretch, will never dare to be

Even in imagination.  For that face

That blank, inglorious concavity

Which my hand finds now

(He strikes him)

The beautiful Roxanne, whom he loves but never tells, is smitten by the pretty face of young Baron Christian de Neuvillette, a cadet in Cyrano’s regiment of Gasconeers.  Christian’s not a man of words, so during the brief courtship Cyrano writes for him love letters, stands under a balcony whispering to him what to say to Roxanne to win her heart and her hand.

Earlier, by a series of mistaken communications, Cyrano was led to hope it was he Roxanne’s heart chose.  Then, after a resounding shock as she unknowingly confided her love of Christian, she leaves:

His friend, Le Bret, cautions him he’s making too many enemies.

Le Bret:  Alone, yes!  But why stand against the world?  What devil has possessed you now, everywhere making yourself enemies?

Cyrano:  Watching  other people making friends everywhere as a dog makes friends!  I mark the manner of these canine courtesies and think:  “My friends are of a cleaner breed;  Here comes – thank God! – another enemy!”

Le Bret:  But this is madness!

Cyrano:  Method, let us say.  It is my pleasure to displease.  I love hatred.  Imagine how it feels to face the volley of a thousand angry eyes, the bile of envy and the froth of fear spattering little drops about me.  I hold myself erect perforce, wearing the hatred of the common herd.

Le Bret:  (After a silence, draws Cyrano’s arm through his own.)  Yes. Tell this to all the world – and then to me say very softly that . . . She loves you not.

Much later, he’s fatally injured.  Near death:

Cyrano:  I can see him there.  He grins.  He is looking at my nose, that skeleton. (To Death):  What’s that you say?  Hopeless?  Why, very well!  But a man does not fight merely to win!  No, no, better to know one fights in vain!  You there – Who are you?  A hundred against one.  I know them now, my ancient enemies – (He lunges at the empty air.)

Falsehood! There!  There!  Prejudice!  Compromise!  Cowardice!  (Thrusting)

Surrender, you say?  Never!  Never!

Ah, you too, Vanity!  I knew you would overthrow me in the end.

No!  I fight on.  I fight on!  I fight on!.  (He swings the blade in great circles, then pauses gasping.)

Old Edmond Rostand managed to write that thing without ever even knowing me. Felt middling strange reading it, though I imagine when I read it previous times it felt equally strange.

Jack

Mike’s moving blog entry about the threat to online gambling and how removal of the right to do it will touch his life tells a far larger story than his own experience and the threat to his own well-being.

Mike correctly points out, “This online gambling prohibition goes over the top.”

The problem is that the historical, psychological and political processes leading to relieving the citizenry of the choices and responsibilities for freedom aren’t going to stop because they arrived at anyone’s doorstep.

In the 1970s, for instance, the Baptists cheered and gave all manner of support when Governor Dolph Briscoe ordered the closure of the Chicken Ranch, a whorehouse institution that had survived with the tacit approval of politicians and law enforcement officials for 3/4ths of a century.

However, the Baptists felt a lot less enthusiasm when the Texas Rangers, operating under the orders of the same Texas Governor, kicked down the door of a private home and arrested a well-known Baptist evangelist and a number of church elders during a Thursday night poker game.

That went over the top, they believed.

Jealously guarding the freedoms of others we disagree with is a tough pill to swallow.  But it’s the only way we can assure our own will remain intact.

Jack