Turnips & aquavit; breakfast of champions….

Ffolkes,

Oh, no! Just when I thought I had this figured out, I get up to find myself again confronted by a vast white space, with nothing worth writing to be found anywhere in my mind…. Scary, and frustrating, since I had achieved a bit of success at getting them done in a timely fashion…. Y’know what, ffolkes? I’m not even going to fuss with it at all. The damn screen up here can remain blank, for all I care. I’m going to be as ruthless as I’ve ever been, even counting the time I…. no, I probably shouldn’t share that. The statute of limitations hasn’t passed yet. Ah well… Any who, I think we’ll just end this right here, before we get fully started, and before this gets any stranger than it already is…. Luigi, get us out of here!….

Shall we Pearl?

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.” — Oscar Wilde, “Oscariana”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Image from elvinbishipmusic.com via Google Free Images

One of this artist’s peers once said of him, “He’s ain’t good lookin’, but he sure can play.” Elvin Bishop’s primary source of fun in life was playing music on stage; one could tell that by the constant grin on his face as he played. No other artist I ever saw in a live performance consistently gives his all for his fans onstage like Elvin; I’ve been to see him in a lot of different venues, and it is ALWAYS a great time…. In fact, I’m thinking of making his song, Travelin’ Shoes, my theme song…. Enjoy, ffolkes, it doesn’t get any better than this for live music….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Le Penseur ~~ August Rodin

A short, but, potent rant from the intro section of the Pearl posted on 10/5/2013:

Unbeknownst to the remainder of the world, I struggle, here in the dark of the morning, waging war with the always-present, never-sleeping, force of evil, that the world calls Bob, or sometimes, Steve-a-rino….. No matter what name we use, by any other token, they are very, very bad evils, whether in their initial, merely bloody, sharp-sword incarnation, or if they’ve gone into complete chainsaw mode. Either way, somebody is in for a world of hurt….

“What the hell is he babbling about now?”, is probably the foremost question in your mind(s) right now…. (I know, assuming that more than one mind currently reading this is being, perhaps, too hopeful…. My readership has taken a severe dip lately….)…. I’m babbling because, hey, it’s what I’m best at, and nothing else seemed as if it was going to get me down the road toward a real Pearl, so, I just went with it…. It’s not as if y’all had gotten accustomed to a more elegant format around here, now, is it? No, we’ve been stuck in bourgeois mode for quite some time now, with no real change of venue in sight…

Not that there’s anything wrong with being bourgeois; it’s only when we start trying to break into proletariat mode trouble begins, as it always does in such cases….. The human animal, though it always seems to fall into some form of hierarchical society, seems to function most efficiently when categories such as bourgeois, proletarian, or any others based on financial worth, are NOT used to determine one’s relative place in society…. The only truly honorable form would be a society where one’s social standing was based solely on how much one gave back to that society…. This, however, is mere speculation, since no human society has ever been structured in such a manner that it could be considered as “honorable”…..

Society has always been structured to favor those with the most resources under their control, which is why we are seeing the issues we now have to deal with, as the effects of entropy over time wear away at the foundations upon which it is built. Money is an artificial concept, not really a part of reality, other than as we humans perceive it to be, and therefore, only has the importance that we place on it. Making it the primary social factor that determines how high up in society one rises in the estimation of peers is destined to become a problem, as human nature tends not to share very well…. in short, people get greedy, and hoard all the resources (money) to themselves, ensuring their own place, and keeping others in a place lesser than their own….

Politicians, bless their black, lying, little hearts, would have us believe we live in a classless society, that everyone is equal, and has equal rights…. Well, ffolkes, guess what?…. That’s just another of their ubiquitous lies, and society isn’t like that at all…. At every level, built in prejudices and misconceptions, guided and kept true by unseen, but iron-clad cliches, color people’s viewpoint with the brush of discrimination, based on how much money a person makes, or what color their skin may be, or where they were born, or whether or not they stand up to pee…

People use a myriad ways to decide that other people aren’t as good as they are, all of which are lies; all of those thousands of prejudices are taught by, enforced by, and continuously enabled by the BRC, our Beloved Ruling Class, who believes their place at the top of society is inherently theirs. Given this long-held delusion, and the fact that it has held sway over the rest of society for over ten thousand years, it seems clear they have no intention  of ever relinquishing that place to anyone else….

Oops, it happened again, didn’t it? I fell right into another opening rant, never realizing what I was up to until I was a thousand words down the pike… I guess it’s okay; I don’t see any casualties, other than my own readership’s numbers, so, apparently nobody was standing close enough to get hit by the flying shrapnel….. The fact that there ARE no casualties is not necessarily a good thing, you know….. a couple of bodies would at least indicate that there is SOMEONE reading this stuff, but, I guess my ego doesn’t really need THAT kind of proof…. It’s all a wash anyhow, as I ran out of lime and sulfuric acid, and I’d have a hard time disposing of the corpses… so, it’s just as well….

On that note, I think I’d best get on with it…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like a dot; by thought I encompass the Universe.” — Pascal, Pensees, n. 265

“To sit silently,  and look wise, is not to be compared to drinking sake and making a riotous shouting.” — Ono No Tabitu

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I found this poem from e.e. cummings hiding in Smart Bee, whereupon it was instantly chosen for today’s poetry section, because, hey, good stuff. The Kokopelli adornment above just seems appropriate; if the reason for that is unclear, I suggest googling the name for some background….

Most simply put, according to the Navajo/Hopi beliefs about Reality, Kokopelli is a spirit form, which they see as a very basic part of everything, a representation of one of the eternal principles they saw in the world; in this case, of Entropy, in flesh form…. Coyote, the Trickster is one of the manifestations of his spirit; sometimes seen as his companion, other times he is a shape-shifter who assumes coyote form… One can never tell what the Trickster might be up to in Reality, so, it’s well to plan for his presence….

Hmm…. I may have chosen better than I knew… It occurs to me, perhaps Mr. Cummings wasn’t talking about girls, at all…. ya think? Bears thinking about, I’d say….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Today’s final pearl, in my mind, is pretty obviously a recipe…. Any ideas as to the dish it describes? Feel free to comment below….

“Each of us bears his own Hell.” — Publius Maro

“We are all captives of the pictures in our heads.” — Walter Lippmann

“I’m the one who’s got to die when its time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.” — Jimi Hendrix

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” — Hermann Hesse, _Demian_, 1919

“I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.” — G.K. Chesterton

“There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man’s life: “Know thyself”, and “Nothing too much”; and upon these all other precepts depend.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Consolation to Apollonius

“If a man remembers what is right at the sign of profit, is ready to lay down his life in the face of danger, and does not forget sentiments he has repeated all his life when he has been in straitened circumstances for a long time, he may be said to be a complete man.” — Confucius — Analects, XIV.12

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since I managed to begin with alacrity, I shall end the same way. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, with the usual caveat…. to wit: as long as I remain at liberty….

À bientôt, mon cherí….