sun shafts break on rock face,
shadow of fern fronds
flutters in wind gasps
moss on stone.
Forest cathedral.
Plant pillars
buttresses
knotted root
spiralling vine
twisting tendril
light hunt.
The Benevolent Bobby Bisto is perched on a mossy rock. Green light. Leaf shadow.
Instructing his earnest students in his system of esoteric wisdom.
THE SECRET DOCTRINE!
small birds hop about his feet, untroubled by his presence. Is he genuine? Is he a fraud? He is irresistibly likeable, a flashing smile, crinkled laugh lines
a shaggy mane of white hair. Eye twinkle. Laughing.
The Cimmarons camp is known as ASHANTI TOWN.
There is so much I want to show you.
There is a writhing squirming maggot world beneath the surface. A world of contending impulses. Inchoate life forms. Thought forms. Parasitic gods.
Is he taking the piss?
How come he's got that knowing grin on his face the whole time?
MACHINE ELVES!
Blarney stone loquacity' language torrent. thought finds language without friction. tendrils of word growth unfurl outwards, stretch and branch off, there is no search for the right word, the felicitous phrase.
bird song.
the thought finds the words waiting and slips into them gratefully
the unfolding instant.
the students sit on moss and root. burgeoning awareness.
swell and burst. Bobby Bisto remodels the world. Remakes it. Draws out relationships. Exchanges. Patterns. Words take shape in minds eyes, become swirling image clouds, throw images upon the mind screen. Marching armies. Unfolding flowers. Memory flash.
Emotions swell up and ebb away.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
WORLD ECONOMIC MELTDOWN!
alright you bag of slags i had things to do.... i've been in the mountains but i'm back now... Bear with me....
Saturday, July 5, 2008
F. FLYPAPER: PRELIMINARY TEST RESULTS.
No digestive organs. Advanced photosynthesis. Transformation of energy. Wind. Sun. Light. Heat. Transmuted to power mind/body matrix. Draws energy directly from the living environment. Through the pores. Breathes carbon dioxide. Advanced powers of regeneration. Thumb removed grew back within 24 hrs. Further experiments suggest no limit to the body's ability to regenerate itself. Advanced internal temperature control. Body heats and cools itself in response to outside temperature. Reaction to unspoken thought detected. Hostile intentions registered. Responses recorded to events happening outside the perceptual field. Able to negotiate obstacles blindfolded. Echolocation suspected but not confirmed. Memory comparable to that documented in savants. Total recall. Mathematical capacity unrivalled. Instant calculations. Musical pieces of enormous complexity played note perfect after single hearing. Distances judged with the naked eye, accurate to within nanometres. More startling is an ability to comprehend languages never before encountered. Proved able to decode Mayan glyphs and Chinese ideograms. Thought in image not language. Answers arrived at without calculation. An aptitude for manipulation to rival that of the most prodigious psychopath led to Frankie Flypaper escaping from the research laboratory. He is being tracked.
"He could have escaped any time he chose. He wanted us to know. He wanted us to have those results. How much more has he hidden from us? What dos he have planned? A mind like that could achieve anything. He must be stopped. Search the hunting grounds. Every man and woman we have, out there, now."
Huge fractal fields of information intersect, merge, drift.
Frankie mind intact and accessible. As is all mind and every mind. All information exists in potentia and accessible. Hawk mind flying over forest. Rabbit mind skipping through tussocky grass. Mind of tracker dog stalking Frankie through Ruche's hunting grounds.... DNA memory snaking back through millennia. cause and effect branching off endlessly into future time. Preempting future events, following the paths of necessity backwards into the deep past. Perspective not limited to current body coordinates. There is no thought. There is only information apprehended as protean image or sensation. Hawk mind registers as hawk sensation. Air currents on extended wing. Hunt focus. Calculations of distance and speed of strike. Prediction of prey movement. Tree mind of wind fingers through leaf hair, insect trails up trunk track, roots embedded in delicious soil and branches stretched into open air, sunlight and the moving sap..... everything is sensation. Mind is sensation. Thought is the abstraction of sensation. Substituting symbols for blocks of sensation.
The abstract entities represented by numerals take on coloured forms, merging together in a series of combinations before settling into a new forms. Equations shimmer and writhe. Patterns flower among dataclouds. Minute shifts in the environment registered. Mind traveling all circuits. Becoming what it perceives. Taking on the identity of whatever it contemplates. Becomes water. Becomes mineral. Total identification. Flowing over the surface of the world, taking on each shape it passes over. Like the blown leaf for whom the wind is its will, action flows naturally and inevitably from circumstance. Grinning through green forest light. Deliriously happy. Dog bark in distance. Man hunt behind him.
Drifts through signals. Some minds flare orange and red or purple black in grey brain mass. Vast accumulations of energy. Vivid. Distinguished from pulpy brain stew. Zoom in. Inhabit coordinates. Reels from hate blast. Dense purple-black hate. Rigid control. Power lust. Clenched.
Escapes. Moves back stunned. Finds orange-red flare. Sanctuary. Make for that place.
Physical intelligence. Body finds quickest, most efficient, graceful ways of moving through space, of performing actions. It gives Frankie an animal quality. A leopard-like litheness. There is no stifness. No awkwardness. No miscalculation. No resistance. Fluid. Muscles propel body through space. Slice through air. A refined awareness of just how much weight a joint or muscle can bear, how much force can be relayed through it, how much traction can be relied upon. A feel for weights and forces and distances. Gazelle gambol. A spring and suppleness. No stumble. No snag nor snare. Joy in movement. Leap, hands curl around tree branch, momentum propelling Frankie over a muddy brook, lets go, lands lightly on feet, momentum riden into run step, laughing. Leap and skid down loose dirt bank, controlled slide and run.
"He could have escaped any time he chose. He wanted us to know. He wanted us to have those results. How much more has he hidden from us? What dos he have planned? A mind like that could achieve anything. He must be stopped. Search the hunting grounds. Every man and woman we have, out there, now."
Huge fractal fields of information intersect, merge, drift.
Frankie mind intact and accessible. As is all mind and every mind. All information exists in potentia and accessible. Hawk mind flying over forest. Rabbit mind skipping through tussocky grass. Mind of tracker dog stalking Frankie through Ruche's hunting grounds.... DNA memory snaking back through millennia. cause and effect branching off endlessly into future time. Preempting future events, following the paths of necessity backwards into the deep past. Perspective not limited to current body coordinates. There is no thought. There is only information apprehended as protean image or sensation. Hawk mind registers as hawk sensation. Air currents on extended wing. Hunt focus. Calculations of distance and speed of strike. Prediction of prey movement. Tree mind of wind fingers through leaf hair, insect trails up trunk track, roots embedded in delicious soil and branches stretched into open air, sunlight and the moving sap..... everything is sensation. Mind is sensation. Thought is the abstraction of sensation. Substituting symbols for blocks of sensation.
The abstract entities represented by numerals take on coloured forms, merging together in a series of combinations before settling into a new forms. Equations shimmer and writhe. Patterns flower among dataclouds. Minute shifts in the environment registered. Mind traveling all circuits. Becoming what it perceives. Taking on the identity of whatever it contemplates. Becomes water. Becomes mineral. Total identification. Flowing over the surface of the world, taking on each shape it passes over. Like the blown leaf for whom the wind is its will, action flows naturally and inevitably from circumstance. Grinning through green forest light. Deliriously happy. Dog bark in distance. Man hunt behind him.
Drifts through signals. Some minds flare orange and red or purple black in grey brain mass. Vast accumulations of energy. Vivid. Distinguished from pulpy brain stew. Zoom in. Inhabit coordinates. Reels from hate blast. Dense purple-black hate. Rigid control. Power lust. Clenched.
Escapes. Moves back stunned. Finds orange-red flare. Sanctuary. Make for that place.
Physical intelligence. Body finds quickest, most efficient, graceful ways of moving through space, of performing actions. It gives Frankie an animal quality. A leopard-like litheness. There is no stifness. No awkwardness. No miscalculation. No resistance. Fluid. Muscles propel body through space. Slice through air. A refined awareness of just how much weight a joint or muscle can bear, how much force can be relayed through it, how much traction can be relied upon. A feel for weights and forces and distances. Gazelle gambol. A spring and suppleness. No stumble. No snag nor snare. Joy in movement. Leap, hands curl around tree branch, momentum propelling Frankie over a muddy brook, lets go, lands lightly on feet, momentum riden into run step, laughing. Leap and skid down loose dirt bank, controlled slide and run.
MIRACLE INVASION!
Into the void created by the collapse of the state stepped a whole range of religious and ideological organisations, even, on occasion, criminal enterprises. Bandits with Robin Hood complexes. Drug Barons financing hospitals and day clinics. Football teams funded by blackmarket booty.
Evangelists handing out religious tracts with aid packages. Food for prayers and conversions. Medical treatment for believers. Free meals at church services. Clothes emblazoned with religious platitudes.
Huge amounts of money are being expended in the slums and rookeries, on the refuse islands and shanty towns. A furious contest for souls is being waged wherever people are poor and vulnerable, susceptible to bribes and crocodile tears.
Free childcare is an opportunity to mould the minds of the young, and teach them the importance of saving the souls of their parents.
Miracles are staged at every opportunity. Charlatans surreptitiously administer medicines and pray vociferously over their patients, praising God at the first sign of improvement.
Stooges rise from wheelchairs, raise arms to heaven, dance merry jigs of gratitude.
Every church fights for a larger share of the market. Every two-bit cult, every self-declared prophet, every would be revolutionary. Fishers of men all.
No avenue for indoctrination is left unexplored. Radio stations broadcast the Word. Musicians in every conceivable genre. Computer games. Children's stories. Free concerts are staged in the slums. Books are handed out. Games.
Some neighbourhoods are effectively run by a particular sect. They operate as states in minature, extracting tithes and worship in exchange for public services. Religious law operates in these places, sometimes deeply barbaric and intrusive. Sexual lives are rigorously policed. Injudicious words can result in utterly disproportionate punishments.
Religion is big business and the marketplace is a competitive one. Advertising, PR and merchandising outlays are on a par with those of the major corporations and their techniques are no less sophisticated. The heads of the bigger churches pull CEO wages. The churches themselves model themselves after the old cathedrals in their desire to overwhelm the senses.
Services are held in huge auditoriums with preachers elevated on stage, voices massively amplified. There is extensive use of gold, marble, porphyry....
A range of special effects and light displays take the place of stained glass and clouds of incense.
Stirring music rumbles from high-end speakers. Sound and image and the Word are used to push the worshipper into a state of high suggestibility. Awe. A suspension of the critical faculties. Singing and chanting in unison is used to foster a mob mind, the sense of being carried along by a force greater than any one individual. In some cases sacraments include mildly psychotropic drugs.
Ancient techniques of oratory, passionate cadences, emotive language, call and response, crescendos and lulls are mined mercilessly. Savage fears and furtive desires are invoked and maipulated.
And it is working. Huge profits are being made. Thousands and thousands are attending services.
Evangelists handing out religious tracts with aid packages. Food for prayers and conversions. Medical treatment for believers. Free meals at church services. Clothes emblazoned with religious platitudes.
Huge amounts of money are being expended in the slums and rookeries, on the refuse islands and shanty towns. A furious contest for souls is being waged wherever people are poor and vulnerable, susceptible to bribes and crocodile tears.
Free childcare is an opportunity to mould the minds of the young, and teach them the importance of saving the souls of their parents.
Miracles are staged at every opportunity. Charlatans surreptitiously administer medicines and pray vociferously over their patients, praising God at the first sign of improvement.
Stooges rise from wheelchairs, raise arms to heaven, dance merry jigs of gratitude.
Every church fights for a larger share of the market. Every two-bit cult, every self-declared prophet, every would be revolutionary. Fishers of men all.
No avenue for indoctrination is left unexplored. Radio stations broadcast the Word. Musicians in every conceivable genre. Computer games. Children's stories. Free concerts are staged in the slums. Books are handed out. Games.
Some neighbourhoods are effectively run by a particular sect. They operate as states in minature, extracting tithes and worship in exchange for public services. Religious law operates in these places, sometimes deeply barbaric and intrusive. Sexual lives are rigorously policed. Injudicious words can result in utterly disproportionate punishments.
Religion is big business and the marketplace is a competitive one. Advertising, PR and merchandising outlays are on a par with those of the major corporations and their techniques are no less sophisticated. The heads of the bigger churches pull CEO wages. The churches themselves model themselves after the old cathedrals in their desire to overwhelm the senses.
Services are held in huge auditoriums with preachers elevated on stage, voices massively amplified. There is extensive use of gold, marble, porphyry....
A range of special effects and light displays take the place of stained glass and clouds of incense.
Stirring music rumbles from high-end speakers. Sound and image and the Word are used to push the worshipper into a state of high suggestibility. Awe. A suspension of the critical faculties. Singing and chanting in unison is used to foster a mob mind, the sense of being carried along by a force greater than any one individual. In some cases sacraments include mildly psychotropic drugs.
Ancient techniques of oratory, passionate cadences, emotive language, call and response, crescendos and lulls are mined mercilessly. Savage fears and furtive desires are invoked and maipulated.
And it is working. Huge profits are being made. Thousands and thousands are attending services.
Meet Milton Freeman. CEO of Total Correction.
He is immaculately attired, in a conservative way. A well fitted expensive suit, navy blue with a sober barely visible pinstripe. White shirt, starched. Razor sharp trouser crease. Black brogues vigourously buffed and polished. Orderly hair, greying, parted with precision. Clean shaven. Straight back. No hint of a gut. Disciplined. Steely eyed. Cruel lips, thin, perpetually pursed.
Total Corrections, a subsidiary of Priceless Attributes, supplies containment and correction services for a whole range of organisations. A growth industry. It is the market leader. It profits not only for charging its clients for services rendered but also from unpaid prisoner labour.
This is part of the rehabilitation program, preparing the prisoner for freedom. Work gets the prisoners out of their cells, provides exercise, discipline and mental stimulation. A whole host of good habits are ingrained.
Pelican Bay Correctional Facility. Maximum Security. Maximum Punishment.
Total isolation. Once entered the cell is never left until the sentence has been served. Prisoners are issued with colostomy bags. Showers heads are built into the cell ceiling. The shower is switched on at the jailers discretion. Water is dirty and either scaldingly hot are icily cold. There are a number of punishments which can be administered without the potential risk of coming face to face with the prisoner. The temperature of the cell can be raised or lowered to excruciating extremes. Gas can be released from dispensers in the ceiling. Walls and floor can be electrified. Walls and ceiling can be contracted to the point at which the inmate is forced onto his haunches, head bowed. Speakers in the wall can be used to broadcast distressing material, sometimes simply white noise played at a painful volume. Frequencies which cause a loss of bowel control, vomiting etc. In other cases psychologically disturbing material is broadcast. For example, the sound of an inmates wife having sexual intercourse with another man. Technology exists which allows all sorts of possibilities. A favourite trick is to make the man fucking his wife the same man responsible for his arrest, or the judge who sentenced him to Pelican Bay.
Distressing news is fed to him, in total isolation he has no way if determining its veracity. This can be anything; that his sentence has been extended to life, that his family has been killed in a huge gas explosion, that a war has started or a plague unleashed, that new and abominable punishments have been authorised, the removal of the tongue for instance... the possibilities are endless.
Punishment cells include insect cells, crawling with fire ants, mosquitoes, cockroaches, flies, maggots, millipedes and giant poisonous centipedes, rat cells, shit cells where the inmate is knee deep in human excrement and the dreaded itching cells. An irritant is released into the air which makes inmates itch until they rend their own flesh. Inmates have emerged from the itching cells with strips of flesh hanging from them like rag dolls.
Other punishments include allowing an inmate a pet, usually a dog or cat. With no other company the inmate forms a deep bond with the pet. He cares deeply for the animal. The pet is then tortured and killed in front of him, while the guards laugh uproariously.
Other prisons are run on the lines of mental institutions with inmates afforded a relatively large degree of liberty but kept sedated on a range of drugs and subjected to a program of forcible rehabilitation. Electro-shock therapy. Aversion therapy. Lobotomy. It is often easier and more politically convinient to declare a person insane than to find them guilty of a specific crime. There is also no need to set a time limit on their incarceration. They can be held for as long as it is deemed necessary.
Board meeting. Total Correction.
'Prevention of crime?' Freeman barks incredulously
Prevention of crime, dear god above, how did this simpleton find his way into a board meeting? Jenkins you naive wretch, you blundering sappy ignoramus, remind me, what business are we in?'
'But, crime prevention sir, no sir, I mean, correction sir, correction of the criminal mind sir' Jenkins, flustered but relieved, thinking he has the right answer
'You blithering dolt Jenkins, have you seen the reoffending stats, dear Mary mother of God, they're way up into the 90s, what sort of bloody correction is that you nincompoop. Think again. You Morris, spell it out for the half wit would you'
'P.R.I.S.O.N.S'
'What does that spell Jenkins?'
'Prisons sir'
"the vast bulk of our annual profits comes from the designing, building and managing of prisons. What possible interest could we have in the prevention of crime? To the contrary you drooling baboon, our interest lies in the escalation of crime. Our interest lies in whole sectors of the population becoming criminalised. The more criminals the more prisons. The more prisons the more money for us. Bottom bloody line.'
Henry Bastard takes up the thread
'Without a bulwark of the unemployed the economy suffers. Wages rise. We need the unemployed, but have yet to devise a satisfactory method of managing them. Prisons and detention camps provide the best current management option. Think of these people as vectors of infectious disease which must be quarantined to prevent them from spreading to society as a whole. Here their discontent can be contained. They are unable to organise themselves into a political movement. They are unable to spread fear among the affluent and law abiding sections of society. They are unable to sabotage to smooth running of the economy.'
He is immaculately attired, in a conservative way. A well fitted expensive suit, navy blue with a sober barely visible pinstripe. White shirt, starched. Razor sharp trouser crease. Black brogues vigourously buffed and polished. Orderly hair, greying, parted with precision. Clean shaven. Straight back. No hint of a gut. Disciplined. Steely eyed. Cruel lips, thin, perpetually pursed.
Total Corrections, a subsidiary of Priceless Attributes, supplies containment and correction services for a whole range of organisations. A growth industry. It is the market leader. It profits not only for charging its clients for services rendered but also from unpaid prisoner labour.
This is part of the rehabilitation program, preparing the prisoner for freedom. Work gets the prisoners out of their cells, provides exercise, discipline and mental stimulation. A whole host of good habits are ingrained.
Pelican Bay Correctional Facility. Maximum Security. Maximum Punishment.
Total isolation. Once entered the cell is never left until the sentence has been served. Prisoners are issued with colostomy bags. Showers heads are built into the cell ceiling. The shower is switched on at the jailers discretion. Water is dirty and either scaldingly hot are icily cold. There are a number of punishments which can be administered without the potential risk of coming face to face with the prisoner. The temperature of the cell can be raised or lowered to excruciating extremes. Gas can be released from dispensers in the ceiling. Walls and floor can be electrified. Walls and ceiling can be contracted to the point at which the inmate is forced onto his haunches, head bowed. Speakers in the wall can be used to broadcast distressing material, sometimes simply white noise played at a painful volume. Frequencies which cause a loss of bowel control, vomiting etc. In other cases psychologically disturbing material is broadcast. For example, the sound of an inmates wife having sexual intercourse with another man. Technology exists which allows all sorts of possibilities. A favourite trick is to make the man fucking his wife the same man responsible for his arrest, or the judge who sentenced him to Pelican Bay.
Distressing news is fed to him, in total isolation he has no way if determining its veracity. This can be anything; that his sentence has been extended to life, that his family has been killed in a huge gas explosion, that a war has started or a plague unleashed, that new and abominable punishments have been authorised, the removal of the tongue for instance... the possibilities are endless.
Punishment cells include insect cells, crawling with fire ants, mosquitoes, cockroaches, flies, maggots, millipedes and giant poisonous centipedes, rat cells, shit cells where the inmate is knee deep in human excrement and the dreaded itching cells. An irritant is released into the air which makes inmates itch until they rend their own flesh. Inmates have emerged from the itching cells with strips of flesh hanging from them like rag dolls.
Other punishments include allowing an inmate a pet, usually a dog or cat. With no other company the inmate forms a deep bond with the pet. He cares deeply for the animal. The pet is then tortured and killed in front of him, while the guards laugh uproariously.
Other prisons are run on the lines of mental institutions with inmates afforded a relatively large degree of liberty but kept sedated on a range of drugs and subjected to a program of forcible rehabilitation. Electro-shock therapy. Aversion therapy. Lobotomy. It is often easier and more politically convinient to declare a person insane than to find them guilty of a specific crime. There is also no need to set a time limit on their incarceration. They can be held for as long as it is deemed necessary.
Board meeting. Total Correction.
'Prevention of crime?' Freeman barks incredulously
Prevention of crime, dear god above, how did this simpleton find his way into a board meeting? Jenkins you naive wretch, you blundering sappy ignoramus, remind me, what business are we in?'
'But, crime prevention sir, no sir, I mean, correction sir, correction of the criminal mind sir' Jenkins, flustered but relieved, thinking he has the right answer
'You blithering dolt Jenkins, have you seen the reoffending stats, dear Mary mother of God, they're way up into the 90s, what sort of bloody correction is that you nincompoop. Think again. You Morris, spell it out for the half wit would you'
'P.R.I.S.O.N.S'
'What does that spell Jenkins?'
'Prisons sir'
"the vast bulk of our annual profits comes from the designing, building and managing of prisons. What possible interest could we have in the prevention of crime? To the contrary you drooling baboon, our interest lies in the escalation of crime. Our interest lies in whole sectors of the population becoming criminalised. The more criminals the more prisons. The more prisons the more money for us. Bottom bloody line.'
Henry Bastard takes up the thread
'Without a bulwark of the unemployed the economy suffers. Wages rise. We need the unemployed, but have yet to devise a satisfactory method of managing them. Prisons and detention camps provide the best current management option. Think of these people as vectors of infectious disease which must be quarantined to prevent them from spreading to society as a whole. Here their discontent can be contained. They are unable to organise themselves into a political movement. They are unable to spread fear among the affluent and law abiding sections of society. They are unable to sabotage to smooth running of the economy.'
Friday, July 4, 2008
Ganymede and Xanadu are owned by Priceless Attributes but are not factory towns in the sense that Petersberg is a factory town. Only a relatively small proportion of residents are directly employed by Priceless Attributes. The cities are essentially a business venture. Priceless Attributes rent retail space and housing and supply public utilities; power, water, education, health, security (Wolfram is a subsidiary of Priceless Attributes) and so on either directly or through sub-contractors.
Under this system not only do Priceless Attributes amass obscene amounts of wealth they also control their population to a degree only dreamed about by any dictator, oligarchy or parliamentary democracy. The resident of Ganymede or Xanadu is educated by Priceless Attributes. He lives in an environment designed by Priceless Attributes. His news comes from Priceless Attributes. His entertainment is provided by Priceless Attributes. He is subject to laws drawn up by Priceless Attributes. Strictly speaking there is no public space in the cities of Priceless Attributes. Everything is owned by Priceless Attributes. There is no need for censorship as such. Distribution networks, media, publishers, advertisers are all either owned by or in thrall to Priceless Attributes and any material critical of or detrimental to the interests of Priceless Attributes is strangled at birth.
Under this system not only do Priceless Attributes amass obscene amounts of wealth they also control their population to a degree only dreamed about by any dictator, oligarchy or parliamentary democracy. The resident of Ganymede or Xanadu is educated by Priceless Attributes. He lives in an environment designed by Priceless Attributes. His news comes from Priceless Attributes. His entertainment is provided by Priceless Attributes. He is subject to laws drawn up by Priceless Attributes. Strictly speaking there is no public space in the cities of Priceless Attributes. Everything is owned by Priceless Attributes. There is no need for censorship as such. Distribution networks, media, publishers, advertisers are all either owned by or in thrall to Priceless Attributes and any material critical of or detrimental to the interests of Priceless Attributes is strangled at birth.
notes....
Elysium Fields. Gated Community.
cliques of eerily similar pubescent girls stand around the shopping mall (Elysium Gardens) projecting attitudes of lofty boredom and ostentatious scorn
"ha! visible cartilige" extemporising a running commentary on passers-by and their sartorial and physical shortcomings....
Plastic surgery has rendered them almost identical.
they speak in an affected drawl and hand each other compliments of breathtaking insincerity.
'Oh I love your nose! You've had it remodelled again!'
Private Security Guards prowl the permimeter fence. Combat trousers. Military boots. Handguns in holsters. Stun grenades. Tear gas canisters. Capsicum spray. Tasers.
Snipers in dicreete (neo-classical) guard-towers yawn, pick noses. Razor wire in sodium
light. Inside the gates neighbourhood bobbies stroll the streets tipping their hats to the ladies and ruffling the hair of youngsters.
Wives read magazines in tanning beds. Blue glowing coffins. Turn orange.
Attack dogs strain at the leashes of their handlers.
Shopping mall air ionised to deliver pleasing sensation.
Forest of transplanted trees. Recorded bird song. Model birds perch unconvincingly on branches. Glass eyes peer unblinkingly at picnicers.
Nature Walk.
Keeps the riffraff out.
cliques of eerily similar pubescent girls stand around the shopping mall (Elysium Gardens) projecting attitudes of lofty boredom and ostentatious scorn
"ha! visible cartilige" extemporising a running commentary on passers-by and their sartorial and physical shortcomings....
Plastic surgery has rendered them almost identical.
they speak in an affected drawl and hand each other compliments of breathtaking insincerity.
'Oh I love your nose! You've had it remodelled again!'
Private Security Guards prowl the permimeter fence. Combat trousers. Military boots. Handguns in holsters. Stun grenades. Tear gas canisters. Capsicum spray. Tasers.
Snipers in dicreete (neo-classical) guard-towers yawn, pick noses. Razor wire in sodium
light. Inside the gates neighbourhood bobbies stroll the streets tipping their hats to the ladies and ruffling the hair of youngsters.
Wives read magazines in tanning beds. Blue glowing coffins. Turn orange.
Attack dogs strain at the leashes of their handlers.
Shopping mall air ionised to deliver pleasing sensation.
Forest of transplanted trees. Recorded bird song. Model birds perch unconvincingly on branches. Glass eyes peer unblinkingly at picnicers.
Nature Walk.
Keeps the riffraff out.
THE SALVATION ARMY!
The Salvation Army represents a fundamental break from the modern conception of God. Here God offers no succour to the suffering, no courage for the fearful, is no companion to the friendless, no source of strength to the weak, the meek and the mild.
Let us quote from one its own theologians
'Who is this pitiful God happy to sleep side to side with beggars in the wind swept streets, who pleads with the powerful to sheathe their swords, to reliquish the spoils they have won through stength of sinew and fixity of will? Who chides the proud hero and lauds the weak sister. Who, tell me, is this slavish God, this weak, wretched God of conquered peoples? Who bleats for love and understanding. We recognise no such God. Would God shy away from the world he has created? Admonishes the kings he has set to rule over it and laud those who are crushed under its weight? A God who bemoans his own creation? Impossible! What God would make a world only to disown it? This can be no God of ours.
Our God is a God of the victor and not the slave. A God to inspire fear not wheedle for insipid love. He is powerful. He is fierce. His hair and beard are of flame. His counternance is that of the thundercloud and the roiling ocean, the savage tiger, the erupting volcano. Sharp of fang and claw, thew and sinew. Strong and ruthless. He pleads not for mercy, nor does he beg for compassion. He does not cousel forgiveness. He hungers for blood and death. Only victory honours his name, victory and the blood of those who deny him. Fear God. Fear his wrath. Give him his tribute as you would a conquering king. Seek not to humanise him. He is God and He is terrible'
from 'The Wolf and the Sheep'
Let us quote from one its own theologians
'Who is this pitiful God happy to sleep side to side with beggars in the wind swept streets, who pleads with the powerful to sheathe their swords, to reliquish the spoils they have won through stength of sinew and fixity of will? Who chides the proud hero and lauds the weak sister. Who, tell me, is this slavish God, this weak, wretched God of conquered peoples? Who bleats for love and understanding. We recognise no such God. Would God shy away from the world he has created? Admonishes the kings he has set to rule over it and laud those who are crushed under its weight? A God who bemoans his own creation? Impossible! What God would make a world only to disown it? This can be no God of ours.
Our God is a God of the victor and not the slave. A God to inspire fear not wheedle for insipid love. He is powerful. He is fierce. His hair and beard are of flame. His counternance is that of the thundercloud and the roiling ocean, the savage tiger, the erupting volcano. Sharp of fang and claw, thew and sinew. Strong and ruthless. He pleads not for mercy, nor does he beg for compassion. He does not cousel forgiveness. He hungers for blood and death. Only victory honours his name, victory and the blood of those who deny him. Fear God. Fear his wrath. Give him his tribute as you would a conquering king. Seek not to humanise him. He is God and He is terrible'
from 'The Wolf and the Sheep'
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
HUMAN ENGINEERING! REDUX!
Sally Formica is walking home. Home is on the outskirts of town, one of many squatter camps chiseled out of toxic land. Where the steady sodium light is replaced by the smoky living light of fire. Fires in oil drums. Candlelight. Wooden pallets burning in braziers. Oil lamps. And the people lie thick on the floors. Head to toe and shoulder to shoulder. With bedsheets or lengths of old carpet hung from the ceiling or girders in lieu of walls, dividing one lot of personal space from another. Where houses are corrugated iron and driftwood. Plastic sacking and straw. Where waste accumulates outside the doors and is never taken away. Where electricity is purloined and its supply is erratic and volatile. Where old diseases flare up again like vindictive ghosts. Cholera. Yellow fever. Smallpox. 18 miles away. Long foot slog through city streets. Where the roads don't go. Where dirt tracks wind aimlessly through filth.
But for now she walks through great canyons of Xanadu, in the shadow of skyscrapers. Where capital reaches its greatest point of concentration, and the buildings grow tallest and most vigorously. Each one pressed hard against the other, fighting for space. A rainforest of skyscrapers. A dense ecosystem where money is sun and rain and soil.
The the very air crackles and flashes with imagery. The sigils of advertisers. Dragons swoop down at her, making her heart race in response. Adrenal glands spark. Handsome men with come hither smiles pose in their underwear, 6 packs rippling in low bedroom light. Gesture to her. Whisper words in her ear. The siren songs wrench at her heart. Surges of bittersweet memories. Erotic fantasies. Orchestral strings emote. Fanfares of triumphal brass. The heart flutters. Micro-narratives snare the attention. A shorthand dependent on a shared image bank. Hours spent immersed in sound and moving image. Archetypes of the mediasphere.
Nostalgia for things which never happened. Transplanted memories. Fictional childhoods running through the wild flowers. Happy families around a dinner table laden with food. Archetypal idylls more vivid than her own past could ever be. Rope swings over laughing rivers. Toy yachts catch the breeze on glittering lakes. Kite flying on windy hilltops. Golden sand, blue sea and sun sets. Endless days of exquisite languor. Sand between the toes. Swaying of the hammock. Swaying of the Palm trees. Salty tang of the warm sea. Romance in the waves. Salt in the kissing sea. Birthday partys. Gaggles of giggling friends. Cake and jelly and ice cream. and all these things able to be triggered in quick concatenations of image and music. The heart gasps. Overwhelmed. There's a hollow feeling in the gut. A surfeit of ersatz emotion. A hollow feeling that wants more stimulation. that fears being cut off from its supply. But it is getting late and the walk is long. There is no time to linger in the matrix.
As she walks the adverts grow simpler. Cruder. Reliant on older technology. Towards the periphery. Where the money begins to run out. The people on the streets look more tired. Their clothes cheaper. Their gait slower. Their posture stooped. Torn billboard posters for discontinued brands. The buildings grow less densely. Vacant weed grown lots. Shattered windows. Collapsed roofs. Walls blackened with soot. Sally is walking home. To CanalTown. Where the canals criss-cross old industrial estates and wasteland. Clogged with squatters. The exhausted canals choked with algae and rubbish. Sewage dumped directly into the reeking canals. Dense and green and putrid. Lined with houseboats and barges with makeshift roofs. Tarpaulin stretched over the barges. And people sleeping inside pressed together for warmth. And the rats are everywhere. Huge and fearless and black. Mould grows everywhere on the damp walls. Sprouts from cracked plaster and concrete. A persistent dampness. Clothes and sheets and blankets all impregnated with the damp. Inescapable. Weakening the lungs. Everyone hawks and coughs up gobbets of thick green phlegm.
People living on rotting houseboats and barges. And in the factories and derelict warehouses. Building fires on the concrete floors. Thousands and thousands of them. Priced out of the housing market. Priced out of the city centre. Priced out of the suburbs. Rats running over prone bodies. Working in the sweatshops for the tailors. Haute couture. Sweat shops. Making one off items. Sewing quetzl feathers into headresses, diamonds into the hemlines of ballgowns. Febrile micro-enterprise. Legal, quasi-legal and illicit. Fermenting fruit or honey and spices in old iron bathtubs, synthesising psychoactive drugs in makeshift laboratories, flogging quack cures and counterfeit medicines to desperate families, running protection rackets, cloning credit cards, cultivating cannabis and opium, growing herbs and vegetables in roof gardens, recycling rubbish, harvesting scrap metal, resurrecting expired electronics, reviving exhausted furniture, varnishing, reupholstering, faking fashionable handbags, sunglasses, t-shirts, football kits, stealing and robbing and extorting, preaching Apocalypse and salvation, building lean-tos and shacks, purloining electricity from the grid or conjuring it from the sun and wind, renting sleeping space in rooms owned by someone else entirely. The watermen who haul wooden handcarts heavy with sloshing urns behind them, essential in a neighbourhood with no water mains. a whole range of scams and ruses and schemes for survival. Every ecological niche is filled. Every way of extracting a living from the environment. A huge cast of characters thrown back on their own resources. Preyed on by mobs and thugs and confidence men. Harassed by officials and private security guards. Always in fear of losing what little they have. Disease as ubiquitous as the rats. Gangsters preying off the defenceless. Teenage hoodlums thrilled by the fear they induce.
Sally's heart sinks. A roadblock. Wolfram Security. Checking papers they know she doesn't have. Bribe hungry. She recognises Canaltown gangsters lurking around a smoking brazier. Security guards and gangsters. Wolfram gives the gangsters free rein over CanalTown in exchange for their cooperation is crushing dissent, organised resistance, political agitation. The gangsters identify trouble makers. Act as provocateurs. Eliminate leaders. Break up incipient organisations. Instill fear.
But for now she walks through great canyons of Xanadu, in the shadow of skyscrapers. Where capital reaches its greatest point of concentration, and the buildings grow tallest and most vigorously. Each one pressed hard against the other, fighting for space. A rainforest of skyscrapers. A dense ecosystem where money is sun and rain and soil.
The the very air crackles and flashes with imagery. The sigils of advertisers. Dragons swoop down at her, making her heart race in response. Adrenal glands spark. Handsome men with come hither smiles pose in their underwear, 6 packs rippling in low bedroom light. Gesture to her. Whisper words in her ear. The siren songs wrench at her heart. Surges of bittersweet memories. Erotic fantasies. Orchestral strings emote. Fanfares of triumphal brass. The heart flutters. Micro-narratives snare the attention. A shorthand dependent on a shared image bank. Hours spent immersed in sound and moving image. Archetypes of the mediasphere.
Nostalgia for things which never happened. Transplanted memories. Fictional childhoods running through the wild flowers. Happy families around a dinner table laden with food. Archetypal idylls more vivid than her own past could ever be. Rope swings over laughing rivers. Toy yachts catch the breeze on glittering lakes. Kite flying on windy hilltops. Golden sand, blue sea and sun sets. Endless days of exquisite languor. Sand between the toes. Swaying of the hammock. Swaying of the Palm trees. Salty tang of the warm sea. Romance in the waves. Salt in the kissing sea. Birthday partys. Gaggles of giggling friends. Cake and jelly and ice cream. and all these things able to be triggered in quick concatenations of image and music. The heart gasps. Overwhelmed. There's a hollow feeling in the gut. A surfeit of ersatz emotion. A hollow feeling that wants more stimulation. that fears being cut off from its supply. But it is getting late and the walk is long. There is no time to linger in the matrix.
As she walks the adverts grow simpler. Cruder. Reliant on older technology. Towards the periphery. Where the money begins to run out. The people on the streets look more tired. Their clothes cheaper. Their gait slower. Their posture stooped. Torn billboard posters for discontinued brands. The buildings grow less densely. Vacant weed grown lots. Shattered windows. Collapsed roofs. Walls blackened with soot. Sally is walking home. To CanalTown. Where the canals criss-cross old industrial estates and wasteland. Clogged with squatters. The exhausted canals choked with algae and rubbish. Sewage dumped directly into the reeking canals. Dense and green and putrid. Lined with houseboats and barges with makeshift roofs. Tarpaulin stretched over the barges. And people sleeping inside pressed together for warmth. And the rats are everywhere. Huge and fearless and black. Mould grows everywhere on the damp walls. Sprouts from cracked plaster and concrete. A persistent dampness. Clothes and sheets and blankets all impregnated with the damp. Inescapable. Weakening the lungs. Everyone hawks and coughs up gobbets of thick green phlegm.
People living on rotting houseboats and barges. And in the factories and derelict warehouses. Building fires on the concrete floors. Thousands and thousands of them. Priced out of the housing market. Priced out of the city centre. Priced out of the suburbs. Rats running over prone bodies. Working in the sweatshops for the tailors. Haute couture. Sweat shops. Making one off items. Sewing quetzl feathers into headresses, diamonds into the hemlines of ballgowns. Febrile micro-enterprise. Legal, quasi-legal and illicit. Fermenting fruit or honey and spices in old iron bathtubs, synthesising psychoactive drugs in makeshift laboratories, flogging quack cures and counterfeit medicines to desperate families, running protection rackets, cloning credit cards, cultivating cannabis and opium, growing herbs and vegetables in roof gardens, recycling rubbish, harvesting scrap metal, resurrecting expired electronics, reviving exhausted furniture, varnishing, reupholstering, faking fashionable handbags, sunglasses, t-shirts, football kits, stealing and robbing and extorting, preaching Apocalypse and salvation, building lean-tos and shacks, purloining electricity from the grid or conjuring it from the sun and wind, renting sleeping space in rooms owned by someone else entirely. The watermen who haul wooden handcarts heavy with sloshing urns behind them, essential in a neighbourhood with no water mains. a whole range of scams and ruses and schemes for survival. Every ecological niche is filled. Every way of extracting a living from the environment. A huge cast of characters thrown back on their own resources. Preyed on by mobs and thugs and confidence men. Harassed by officials and private security guards. Always in fear of losing what little they have. Disease as ubiquitous as the rats. Gangsters preying off the defenceless. Teenage hoodlums thrilled by the fear they induce.
Sally's heart sinks. A roadblock. Wolfram Security. Checking papers they know she doesn't have. Bribe hungry. She recognises Canaltown gangsters lurking around a smoking brazier. Security guards and gangsters. Wolfram gives the gangsters free rein over CanalTown in exchange for their cooperation is crushing dissent, organised resistance, political agitation. The gangsters identify trouble makers. Act as provocateurs. Eliminate leaders. Break up incipient organisations. Instill fear.
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