Waiting on Pangea Proxima

I look at my wrist. 300 millions years to go, more than enough time to sell real estate. I'd finished with undiscovered countries, those hidden from maps, but was still to negotiate a string of Late Pleistocene lakes that draped themselves across the Mojave. Beach front property, sold vertically, up-and-down across deep time, my clients learning the meaning of sunken costs while basking upon the bleached shore of a dry lake.

[Submitted to The Short Story Postcard Project, April 29, 2021]

Dale Basin Haiku

DALE LAKE 1
Pleistocene plenty
A palace of indifference
Observant, faithless

DALE LAKE 2

Mist veiled nabkhas

Dale glimmering snow white

day's pregnant unrest

DALE LAKE 3

eye drink Dale Lake dry

the baited brine noiselessly

swell a crystal crust

FIVE ACRES 1
Virus dreaming green
off-grid, off-green, dry campers
Tuff Sheds on the lake

FIVE ACRES 2
Desert tropes, Dear John
140 years of failed dreams
Ain't enough for me

FIVE ACRES 3
Bad actors under
Aeolian blisters bake
ham-fisted desert

DESERT MODERNISM

Hashtag swag, Dear John

suburban feralities

Ka-Ching, greener Green

GREASEWOOD

Recovered memory

Larrea Tridentata

and managed retreat

LATE PLEISTOCENE LAKES

On deckled shores

dry lakes measured in bits of

Rhode Island units

[From a work in progress]

Al-Jabr 57

Spatchcocked on Al-Jabr 57 in a pigtail of a shipwreck, Braedon is reduced to a off-brand sigil. Ozone, burnt sugar, and wet dog flood the sensors, all needles bent. Fortune has undone his legs, Sly and Robbie, seeding a compass rose on a new world. Restless sugar sand erase all memory of animal joy. Al-Jabr is trouble, round and dangerous.

[Submitted to The Short Story Postcard Project, April 4, 2021]

Rolling with the changes

It was an experiment but it was well organized. Just a few simple rules.

Adhere to clock time. Go ahead and look out the window and continue your morning and evening walks. But obey the clock, or rather the clocks. (Note this doesn't include your mobile, that's not a clock, it's a camera with a tracking device).

Twelve or twenty four, your choice but your appliances prefer twelve hour shifts so most likely you'll stick to this.

When the power goes out, light a candle or be gloomy about your misfortune. When the power comes back on, your appliances take over and their revived clock faces are you new life-organizing standard.

You'll probably do some subtraction and addition maths at first but after a few cycles that will be nearly impossible. What is life like in this new world revolving around happenstance time? Talk it over with your Maytag and your Amana.

And it's a good thing you ditched that VCR. It would stubbornly blink twelve, zero zero, ad infinitum, tapping its feet waiting for human intervention. That defeats the whole purpose of the experiment.

[This was written for a Word Slinger session, Saturday April 3, 2021]

Bloodfast ‘85

[A slightly edited transcription of a resurfaced page typed in 1985. Some decent ideas but perhaps reading too much J.G. Ballard, which leaves me wondering what if I'd discovered Barrington Bayley or M. John Harrison back then? Still like the radio-borne virus, as there have been recent science papers about quarantining received SETI messages to prevent contagion by xeno-software viruses. Also, I still prefer the term CETI over SETI].

BLOODFAST

No one noticed when the remaining TV stations went over to continuous reruns and looping public announcements. Surely at this late date, appetite had triumphed over reason, or simply overwhelmed any pretense of logic. And yet, there was a logic still working, and not so alien as it might first appear. It was a half-forgotten logic, infantile, claiming itself as personal history. Too authentic to be denied, too thirsty for identify.

By the late Eighties, the sophisticates had reestablished their complacency, so thoroughly shook by the events of the mid-decade. To the few who still nurtured a need to know, the sophisticates this time had gone the championship distance to prove to be a sophisticated, cultured thinker was to be a domestic creature… It wasn’t the door kicked open at Trinity that spilled the slop. The door was pried open by Mr. Marconi, although the meat was already well tenderized by Herr Gutenberg.

Gutenberg, Marconi, and Oppenheimer, and all the Edisons and Fords, they laid the path to CETI... 

Communication, with or without purpose, driven by the nightmare of ultimate destruction, diluting, then sweeping away all transmission of the evolution of good and evil. Now there was only good and not so good. Maybe bad, or least desirable. But where was the Evil? How nature abhors a vacuum!

The theory of radio-borne virus was novel, but not without some theoretical underpinnings. There was no research on the subject at Arecibo earth station. The most able mathematicians and exo-biologists were the first to go.

The pulse of the galaxy was interrupted by a infinitely sharp lance, a dagger shaped signal, a scalpel driven at the speed of light, a precision thrust to the stem of the brain, wielded over cold dark light years, piercing a soft pulpy vestigial gland. Radio-borne, then airborne and ear-borne.

The body was replaced by a wound. A wound with a mouth, and eyes and ears and intestines, ass, cock and cunt.

A new birth perhaps, actualized on a fully traumatized population so eager to be entertained, enthralled by a message from space. Yes, space! Out there! Space indeed, not this oozing pulp we inhabit in our isolation. The  loneliness of a sterile earth-bound life, made personal, millions and millions of times over and over.

In the cities sodomic zombies ride out their flesh play, dimmed character of reproduction, coming in pools of pus and bile, torn by competing orifices permanently pried open by a ferocious hunger beamed from beyond. The highest species of the blue green planet pimped to the heavens.

In the fitness of our wounds we find vision.

[Written sometime in 1985]

Drexel, Burnham, Lambert and a Drop in the Ocean to Go

[The accompanying text for my first assignment in George Legrady's Art 410.1 course at San Francisco State University in the Conceptual Design/Information Arts Department. The reproduced page at bottom has the classic Chicago default sans serif font for the Macintosh. The top image is a DDR worker finishing work on a typewriter, circa 1987, source unknown. Drexel, Burnham Lambert was a investment bank forced into bankruptcy in 1990 and was associated with junk bonds and Michael Milken.]

Description

Three US pennies and a five gallon plastic 'bladder' partially filled with water. Objects related by color: "transparent." A collection (of coins) and a body (of water). The discrete and the continuous. A soukous guitar solo by Franco. Chords versus marimba, rhumba! A string of readings; a rigged wishing well for corrupt travelers with car phone, a late 20th century cargo cult wristwatch (digital works and liquid crystal display), a chance operated processing device (I Ching with monitor cube), obvious (cash flow), less obvious (cold fusion), government agency ad for peace corps and conservation (the collected water vapor of a Peace Corp volunteer and his/her contribution to world understanding/national security measured in GNP units), etc.

Evaluation

A simple opening statement of interests. The quantitative is a fast lane to God. 320 shot glasses of water, 3 gallons, water gathered from the shores of an ancient (dry) lake in the Mojave (Trona). Pennies from a collection approaching the weight of a human body. Cerebral and computer-aided modelling proliferates in the masses, common objects are reassembled into machine/models appropriate for the task at hand. The "Romanian Model" running simultaneously at Los Alamos National Laboratories and across the squares and airwaves of a distant land. "We almost lost Detroit": "one of our algorithms got loose and it may be in enemy hands."

References

"The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins, subtited "Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design."
Two five gallon water bottles, one full and the other an inch deep in pennies.
"One Human Minute" by Stanislaw Lem, an essay/review of tomorrow's almanac.
Final scene of the "Creeping Unknown" (Hammer 1954) where Professor Quatermas leaves the scene of disaster averted to "start over" in the morning!

Ken Sitz
Art 410.1 (George Legrady, SFSU)

2/15/1990

Word Slingers, Saturday 12/26/2020

Some Word Slingers product from this morning's session and their associated prompts.

The ground was uneven, a little soft in spots, but we were dancing, dancing on a cold New Years Eve, on the impromptu graves of the lumpen futurists and dystopian world builders who had gone back to starvation wages and dug themselves spider holes to wait out the dreadful, unforeseen year.

If anything, they were good for a quick lash-up and had had a nice living as late arrival disrupters for visionary CEO's with an opening in the calendar. The last pitch I'd heard was for an exchange of a 12-month hi-desert August for the entirety of 2020. It might have gone down too if the negotiations hadn't been undermined by a loud and barely maintained swamp cooler drowning out the nuances of the barter.

Now it was time to dance again, Emma Goldman-type dancing. Imagining the end of the world had gotten easier, and imagining the end of Capitalism was re-illuminated and back on the menu.

 Prompt: You should be dancing

* * * * * 

The marketing was intoxicating and I was drunk on France, or rather some part of Northern California not reduced to ash. Freely flowing and with a hint of a stolen mother from a religious cult's kombucha brewery, the bouquet wasn't quite the punch in the face I'd hoped for. Still it was flowing and my limbs were melting, not from the heat of the loud, darkened cavern, but some cold glacial slide. My legs and arms like stretches of permafrost awakening to a warming season, and my body began to feel porous and open to opportunities that only the next few minutes might provide. Breathe, remember to breathe, I remembered. Agustina nudged me and I refocused momentarily as a glistening waiter approaches us tray aloft and floating above his decorated arm. Keep it flowing, and upright for the moment, Agustina indicated with her glance and whispered "More prehistory later."

Prompt: Keep the champagne flowing

* * * * *

Planning was not my strength after all. It was a fault of our times and I take no personal responsibility for it. We were all being curated, or complicit in deejaying our way into the abyss, while missing the journey and oblivious to the end, even if there wasn't a recognizable end, like the flickering black-and-white title card on a imported Swedish film. I'm saving myself, the best for last, despite all those heads and torsos bobbing up and down around me. The last look at the night sky, the cold plunge, dipping beneath the surface, one warm breath, held tight, exhaling a final performance followed a few sustained moments later by a violent bow. The last, not necessarily my best, but the last.

Prompt: I'm saving the best for last

* * * * *

A celebrity in debt is a fascinating object and ultimately a wonderful investment opportunity. I offer you this premiere financial product before it's official debut on the platform. Risks are substantial but the rewards are astronomical and participating in this fund is a pleasure that you'll be proud to flaunt. The initial offering is a collection of Coreys, Amandas, and syndicated chefs. Rebooted sitcoms, mall openings and car shows, public humiliation and psychic meltdowns, threatening paternity suits and slow, drawn out public suicides, all to a schedule of returns and options. It's fleeting fame and money-in-your-pocket fortunes!

Prompt: Fame or fortune

Word Slingers, Saturday December 5, 2020

Some Word Slingers product from this morning's session and their associated prompt.

Spare me, it's just a blank canvas.

Yes, but that's the point.

Okay, I'm intrigued. Go on.

Um, that's it. 

What? That's it? If that's just a blank canvas, I'd call that a stretched canvas.

Aha. Cute. You're not really into this, are you?

No, I think I'm getting the hang of it. It's just that as a gaseous being, sentient for sure, but relatively formless and colorless, my perceptions align across several different spectra that are currently well outside your ken.

So you going with that one? I'm colorless and undefined. I do reckon there's a vicinity of some nameless scents, unless I'm having a stroke. You're obviously capable of dialogue.

Maybe I'm just beauty-blind. It's been a lovely visit, I'll grant you that and I do enjoy our exchange.

Prompt: Let me tell you about the time I was invisible

* * * * *

No doubt there'll be a job posting for a new senior program manager on Indeed and LinkedIn within the hour. It wasn't so much that the party was out of control, it was just invisible. If you looked around the office, things seemed like a regular mid-week, mid-afternoon slump, the effect of hastily eaten lunches now midway in process of digestion and the familiar but crushing routines rounding on overdrawn late night streaming. 

It's come to this. Showing up was trigger enough, and the project management role had devolved to a lowly pedestrian form of cruise director.

Some holiday shindig even with the budget recession. Party favors was filling out the checklist. The crescendo was reading out the results of a survey. The walls were covered in tabloid-size Excel printouts , artless pixelated grids of fading four color toner. The supply cabinet had grown skinny with irregular restockings of mostly non-requested stationary seconds and castoffs.

Prompt: Wild party

* * * * *

Delayed and deferred. I could of waited for them. 

Prompt: If I knew then, what I know now

Word Slingers, Saturday November 28, 2020

Some Word Slingers product from this morning's session and their associated prompt.

WASP PRIME was scheduled for Wednesday morning. All the projections and final review of the modelling was signed off. Mercury was bustling with some high level visitors from the capitol. A 18-megaton underground test is nothing to sneeze at and we had our Brit counterparts looking over our shoulders.

I was looking forward to the celebratory dinner planned for Saturday at the usual casino. 

As the public affairs officer liked to comment about the naming process for the test series, "some of the lads prefer cheeses." MISTY ECHO was my first, than CANVASBACK and INGOT. DISKO ELM was my contribution. Wasn't there for FONTINA but heard it was less than a success.

Sitting down after all those months of preparation, the suspense of the detonation, and the first roll-out of the data in the immediate aftermath, it was a real relief to toast our collective efforts with a dry and bracing burgundy.

Prompt: All that, and a glass of wine

* * * * *

Jack London was a piece of steak

Rather, that was his short story

A Piece of Steak

If only he'd had a piece of steak to consume before the match

Tom could have taken the kid

But gravy and a little bread, that was his lot

Youth will be served

and the gravy will be cold and lumpy

Prompt: It was gravy

* * * * *

If you had wings, it would be the worst thing.

You're not talking feathers are you, cause there's mites you know?

I'd rather have a good snout. Take it all in, on the wind, keeping my paws on the ground.

Bird's eye view? I don't think so. Keeping track of all that space, that's why their bones are so thin and hollow. About as practical as a Brontosaur, supposedly one of their distant kin.

If you had wings, someone would, you know...

Prompt: If you had wings (Monsanto, Disneyland)

* * * * *

Has he confessed yet?

Give him another 90 minute treatment, selection 23 with binaural beats and isochronic tones.

He'd give up his own mother rather than get a second helping of that.

The enemy combatant was far from contemplating the weaponization of mindless ditties played at insidious frequencies. He was struggling for his sanity in a world claimed by the Imperial Disney.  

Prompt: It's a small world after all

Word Slingers, Saturday November 14, 2020

Some Word Slingers product from this morning's session and their associated prompt.

Stalled, if that's the right work for it. I was still revolving, still clinging to the fixtures, trying to re-orient myself to the spinning interior lit by flickering pulses of recessed light. It was the jagged orbit as projected, but I was powerless and had no option but to hang tight.

Usually I took such an "option" - what a nice characterization for an nonrefuseable choice tarted up as an "option" - to reflect on things, go over the bullet list, construct a haiku, etc., but reflecting and wondering was probably not the best way to fight a creeping nausea. 

Focus, that was the ticket. Stalled and focused. Waiting for impact, but most likely just waiting. Gradually, it always seemed to lazily follow the sudden, the spinning wound down. Was I still waiting or am I done?

Prompt: Hurry up and wait...

* * * * *

With Westarkana, that 79 States now reporting and the Decision Desk has shuttered it blinds and gone offline. Updates at 2300...

Bad math maybe, or lazy logic. Seems inconceivable that we've reached this point. Really? Yes, really: the cola has lost its fizz and the non-dairy drink has gone sour. We bought in and we sniffing the results now, and the bloodhounds at the Decision Desk are circling the stinking mess.

I like a good joke, and plot them all the time. My belief in unforeseen consequences and an indulgence in worst case scenarios and 'natural accidents', not to mention legal liability, has advised me to just enjoy the mental modeling and avoid springing the trap.

Obviously there are theorists of jokes paid in blood and not content with mere punchlines.

UPDATE: The outstanding 23 States are refusing to release their results and we're calling the contest hung. A redo is expected and a new slate of comics will be announced tomorrow.

Prompt: A Practical joke that backfired...

* * * * *

"Circumnavigation, it sounds so expansive. I've been around, it's not what it's cracked up to be" muttered the grizzled old man at the end of the bar.

"But you can see wonderful things, out there, almost over the edge, the wilderness. I go every chance I get!" Polly snapped.

"Yes, wonderful. Buy me a drink, I need to forget" he replied.

"Kevin, another Natty Ice for Gramps here and a Europa IPA for me. Thanks!"

"What do you need to forget?" Polly continued.

"And you think remembering will help me forget?"

"I'm just curious"

"You'll mess-up your pretty makeup pressing your face against the glass. Try and take a step back, close your eyes. Wake up. That's all I can tell you."

"I just want to go all the way around, see everything, capture it in my water colors, tell others." Polly was being honest but looked hurt. Gramps was a downer.

"Here's your drinks. Would you care for any meal worms or flaked food?"

"Nah, thanks Kevin" blurted out Gramps "I have to swim back to my castle"

Prompt: Like a goldfish in a bowl...

Word Slingers, Tuesday November 10, 2020

Some Word Slingers product from this afternoon's session and their associated prompt.

Cheyne was flawlessly good at ignoring directions. Or so it seemed, until now. Something shapeless and dark was brooding about in the background. Even a swift turn of the head and attention focused on the corner of her eyes did not reveal it, yet it hovered, dull and heavy in some place directly behind her and slightly above head height.

Discomforting sensations were not a stranger to Cheyne. She was a keenly aware of her options for self-medication and self-illusion. It was only when this unseen dread, still unnameable, was well into it's second week that Cheyne went looking for whatever it was that might have prompted this unshakable darkness. Had she missed some prompt, some simple instruction?

Could she just turn and face it?

Prompt: Just when he or she thought it was over...

* * * * *

Dumb struck, or I hope it was that simple. I would have shaken my head but I thought maybe it best to stare straight ahead and drop my eyes, going with a soft focus instead of having my head becoming heavy and rolling off my shoulders.

It was technically just news, information, second-hand even, but it was meant to inflect pain and I was caught unawares. 

I have options, sure enough, but what if I didn't reach for them and just stopped. How much can one withstand? It's not pain, but one can still hurt and move about, and learn. 

How reassuring to know it won't hurt a bit. 

Prompt: This won't hurt a bit

* * * * *

Rocky planet: check. Magnetic field: medium, but strong enough to be outside a few hours without shielding. Atmosphere: Not much to speak of but plenty of ice, so we can breath well enough after a bit of brewing and processing. And fuel, no worries. Starlight: damn, A Plus, a blackness to die for. 

Once we dig a bit deeper we'll know more where this rogue originated but for now we'll settle in and get comfortable. Imagine, a place with no Sun, just stars, and stars, and stars. 

Prompt: Where the sun don't shine

Bonus Reality-Check: Unattached 'rogue' planets discovered in the Milky Way

 

Word Slingers, Saturday October 10, 2020

Some Word Slingers product from this morning's session and their associated prompt.

It was number 7. The third RiteAid that morning, and the 3rd RiteAid on Highway 62. So much for the surveillance state, HIPPA and digital privacy. I was on my seventh flu shot of the day. Still not sure how I arrived at this challenge, but I was well into it now after a false start last year and just 3 flu shots in as many days.

I had my Rhodia notebook to collect the set of peeled off band-aids. I was still feeling good and had a boost of adrenaline when I gave out my false identity to the pharmacy clerk. My left arm was definitely tingling but didn't look worst the wear for all the morning's vaccine pricks.

A cheap high thanks to the borrowed Medicare credentials, but the mileage was adding up. What kind of high? Hard to say. Maybe just the hill topping, rock climbing type high. The trite "because it was there."

I wonder if the casino is giving out free flu shots today. I'm definitely feeling lucky.

Prompt: You're never going to believe this.

* * * * *

Due to technical difficulties and a bad connection, our previously schedule guest Mother Nature, who goes by the name Gaia, will not be joining us today. We hope to resolve these issues and have Mother Nature, whose goes by the name Gaia, back very soon in another installment of the Bodega Biosphere podcast.

Our deepest thanks to today guest, Diana, the Moon Goddess, who has agreed to  join for an in depth discussion of all things moon related. Let the lunacy commence...

Diana: First off, I like to tell Elon Musk to go fuck himself. What's with his Mars obsession. Such a little boy. Terraforming the moon too difficultt for you, you billionaire brat?

Prompt: The special guest on your podcast today is Mother Nature

* * * * *

Food poisoning goes by many names. One of them is Mayonnaise.

Used successfully against against a superior opponent, it's called Miracle Whip.

Practically unregulated, the single use poison packets fly out of eateries unsolicited and concealed in packaging and if you are lucky enough to survive, you will no doubt have new appreciation for the phrase "food to go..."

Prompt: Mayonnaise

Word Slingers, Saturday September 12, 2020

Some Word Slingers product from this morning's session and their associated prompt.

Greased pig? 

Where can I find that? 

Encoded in that phrase, some yesterdays, probably many, coming and going, peering out, returning again, disappearing again. 

If you're not lost in the archive, you haven't really visited it.

Some yesterdays are huddling for warmth, while others are contrarian and loners. 

Better to not make too many judgements, and just root around, the random walk, the drift, and leaving your wake to fractally assemble itself into... something. It's best not to get ahead of yourself.

That dog don't hunt.

 Prompt: Holding on for yesterday (song title)

* * * * *

It's a ball. It rolls, round and round.

Not just any ball, it's red and free and will certainly kill you, but in the meantime, have we got an adventure for you.

You don't have to squint anymore and the dollars seem to just keeping rolling in and vanishing (do the Martian canals really drain into subterranean bank accounts buried beneath the Swiss Alps)?.

Look up! Oops, did you drop this? It's mine now and I don't know how I got along without it. That red ball, that's opportunity and these giant silver Coors cans that look like reuseable rocket boosters are stuffed with cash. 

Dedicated to Earth-bound visionary space oligarchs everywhere.

Prompt: Life On Mars (song title)

* * * * *

Hard stop. Dark mode. Lean into it, future-focused.

Never mind someone's objective and key factors keep getting trod underfoot.

Has anyone seen a steamroller lately, or have they all been replaced by phantoms?

The horizon turns out to be the limit, to no one's surprise.  

Prompt: Don't stop me now (song title)

* * * * *

Am I ready for a brand new beat? You asking me, or telling me?

Streets? Sounds like another name for a cul de sac. Did I win anything?

Prompt: Dancing in the streets (song title)

Posting my writing on a long disused blog

I tried reviving my ERRguitar blog to share my writing, especially output from Kevin Bone's Word Slingers, but alas, somehow Facebook blocks that blog for non-compliance with its <sarcasm>vaunted</sarcasm> Community Standards. That might be just 'garden walls' against Blogspot or because earlier content on that 15-year old blog shared film images and sound files and could be interpreted as a violation of intellectual property rights (I think that's a stretch).

So here we go again, reviving a 12-year old blog devoted to mobile phone images. Let's see if this is more agreeable to Facebook. Why Facebook, because it's a convenient way to share links via Messenger or the FB feed directly. We'll see. Won't we?

Reviewing its history, I'd forgotten the blog was intended as a site for fellow Brand Ramblers hiking club members to post their photos via an email link. Hence the abbreviation in the URL as BRGOMO, Brand Ramblers Go Mobile. Alas, the Brand Ramblers are no more as they were associated with a now defunct software outfit based in Glendale CA on Brand Blvd. Rest In Peace and keep hitting the trail you ramblers. Low before its demise, Brand Ramblers moved onto Facebook and Twitter so the site became a place for my Motorola Razr pics which I especially loved for their skewed resolution and impressionistic rendering.

Please note that I'm posting this update on September 11, 2020 but have added in the previous 3 Word Slingers posts to their actual posting dates on the ERRguitar blog,

PS: The image is of "Katafygia - Burden of Dreams" an artwork from 2019 that I contributed to the Refuge show at Joshua Tree's Beatnik Lounge. Also note this photo is is from 2019 LG mobile phone and not a 2008 era Motorola Razr.

Word Slingers, Thursday September 10, 2020

Some Word Slingers product from this afternoon's session and their associated prompt.

Position 9828, Kama Sutra Records Archive, September 10, 1987

Initially a vertical joining, with a consensual dip into a semi-horizontal posture. Vocalizing stops and is replaced by rapid shallow breathing, followed by a glance at the supplied lyric sheet, and a 2nd glance to the left, at the evening's setlist. Attention refocused, eye locking, the previous established rhythm suddenly stops and the position held until the lights drop. Returning to vertical, the partners turn to their right and bow at a 90 degree angle, several times, until the applause diminishes and the band strikes up the next number. 

Barry delivers a warm "Thank you" and Manilow returns "The pleasure was all mine."

Prompt: Barry Fuckin' Manilow

* * * * *

I took the fire stairs. The elevator was too slow, crowded and I didn't want to run into coworkers. 13 flights can take a few minutes and I was already running behind according the real-time updates on the Glendale Today app.

Pope mobile passing Colorado and Brand. Perhaps the waving and flower throwing would slow the procession. I still had a chance to see the Pope. It'd be third Pope sighting in the lifetime of this elapsed Episcopalian. Still, the record would be impressive for some States-bound non-believer who's never been to Rome

Exit door - Alarm will sound. 

Prompt: A Missed Opportunity

* * * * *

Danced around? Danced over? Danced through? Just danced. If you're going through hell, just dance - or so says a dub-stepping Winston Churchill. Usually in the kitchen and it was always alone, to some saltwater dub or down tempo retro-mix. "But there's booze in the blender, and soon it will render..." the lyrical hooks that "let it all hang out" welling up with the bottomless bass and layers of skittering guitar. How many times, how many ways can you be seduced to dance alone to the ridiculous? 

Prompt: I had never danced like that before

Word Slingers, Saturday September 5, 2020

Some Word Slingers product from this morning's session and their associated prompt.

The commander would not be happy. The hab was a shambles and most of the guests had flown off, flapping their wings. Not really what I expected - this reversion to arm-flapping flight, but Titan did offer that. That and lots of methane and organics readymade for plastic habs and and other structures.

The party was for teams arriving and departing. What a mix! These are long deployments and expectations and disappointment had to be strictly managed. But the camaraderie was real and the food and beverage selection was above par thanks to the arriving team and the tradition of stowing rare Earth delicacies.

I'm staying another deployment due to a resource constraints and I'm happy for that. I could do without the jealousy of those who were departing but would have liked to have stayed over. And I'll miss my bunk buddies. 

Prompt: A Party on the Moon

* * * * *

Better late than never. Oh boy, and how.

The concert was a one-off, a one time only event of a lifetime, and the featured artists, all of them, were retiring together, going into the Hall of Memories, preserved for all time, encapsulated individually in polished brass banks that lined the walls like a 20th century mausoleum.

How could I miss this? The City has ways and it's own memories to impose on even a determined traveler. By the time I was able to extricate myself from the tube the marquee was dark. I continued my fast pace stroll up to the doors but they were locked.

A small figure in the shadow of the loading door stirred. Even with the passing years I recognized him right away. Topo Gigio, Ed Sullivan's famous sidekick. 

[To be continued? Abandoned sidekicks in the shadows. Senor Wences' Pedro and Johnny? "Deefeecult For You-Easy For Me"]

Prompt: When being late led to a positive if unexpected outcome.

* * * * *

Quantum Crayola: Diagramming made easy for 7th, 8th and 9th dimensions.

"That's not what my box says!"

"What version?"

"7.007.3"

"There you go, try one of mine. I've been modelling with just the flesh-colored one. Ha, that what I like to call the blue-green one. Reminds me of blue-green algae and soil crust."

"Thanks! Let me have that blood red one - I know what I need to do and it's not going to be pretty."

"Be my guest. Actually, keep it. I never work with blood."

Prompt: A box of crayons... possibly having a discussion

* * * * *

Eight minutes. Baby Jane Doe.

A handful of breathes, and then the long wait. Three years for the pauper grave at Evergreen, the County's own cemetery. The annual December ceremony has really grown over the last 8 years and all denominations are now well represented.

But you're a date and almost a name. One of 1400 or so others interred, the others mostly named and definitely dated as in years. But eight minutes, or the eight plus months earlier. 

Missing you.

Prompt: Write about someone you've not known personally, but has made an impression on you

Word Slingers, Saturday August 22, 2020

Some Word Slingers writing workshop products from this morning's session and their associated prompts. 

How could she walk away from a Popsicle in August in the desert?

It wasn't a survival course and she had to pee. Setting it down on a stack of napkins she walked swiftly to the restrooms.

The swamp cooler was blowing chilled air and invisible smoke ash gently over the paddle shaped treat that was already descending into a swampy puddle.

Balance, that was what was needed. An exchange of molecules, pro's and con's, options with a reasonable chance to resolve into a happy compromise. Can I respect the urgent demands of my bladder while sustaining a frosty and refreshing mouth engagement. Certainly there's no Popsicle holders in the ladies room.

When she returned it was gone, only a slight stain on the counter.

Prompt: Single word "Popsicle"

* * * * * 

Grow Houses I Have Known.

We kept putting up signs - Fresh Tomatoes, with a red arrow pointing down the dirt road that ran perpendicular to the two lane highway.

I think the water haulers thought it was funny and we never heard from the tourists again, but I suspect we'll have to be more stealthy putting up new signs to replace the ones torn down by the grow house help.

It was a shining example of the grey economy and was clearly another ephemeral extraction industry for these parts. Jobs for a few and quick profit for backers willing to gamble against blistering winds and marauding dust devils.

Something to shake your head about while offering a slight chuckle when gathered with neighbors.

It's legal and it's not. We grow some of the finest tomatoes here! 

Prompt: Single word "Marijuana"

* * * * *

ONE STAR. Wouldn't Recommend. See photo gallery (21 pics)

If you're looking for a good time look elsewhere. He was a stone cold blank. Seemingly wordless, even his mumbles lacked conviction. I think he might have drooled once when my Festival Chili Dog was placed in front of me (see surveillance pic 7-9, thanks Arbys!) The dating app clearly needs to update it's liability terms. Maybe they did and the brain-dead have slid into the 'available for fun and food adventures' tier. If that was so, why Arby's for our meetup? Look elsewhere.

Prompt: Write a Yelp-like review of a date. 

Local Playwright Arrested on Opening Night

Dale Basin Times-Dispatch  (XP Wire Services) - Chambless, CA, Thursday 14, 2019

Local area playwright Cefin Tarsus was arrested by San Bernardino Sheriff's Thursday evening on opening night of his play "Over Herd: The Bartender's Trap" The play was being staged at the Salt Cedar Saloon where Tarsus is a bartender and event planner. Deputies declined to enumerate the charges but indicated they involved multiple violations of privacy, unauthorized used of personal data and aggravated identity theft.

Bar regular Red Farnham witnessed the arrest as startled actors, patrons and employees hastily retreated to the bar as the deputies left with Tarsus. "He'd been working really hard on this piece. Ever since those Marines from the base gave him the idea, it's been his sole outside project. The guy works his fingers to the bone at the bar and gets up early to pound out his plays." 

Asked about the Marines, Farnham added "these two jarheads who work on swarm robotics lent Cefin some machine learning software he needed for speech analytics. Cefin has been processing huge data sets of audio, parsing linguistic blocks, tuning models, filtering and training data for deep learning."

Recently retired as a registered ethicist for San Bernardino County, Farnham enjoys afternoons at the saloon where discussions between locals and base personnel frequently diverge into advanced subjects like neurotechnologies, artificial intelligence and Red's own 'Farnham Equation,' an updating of the famous Drake Equation about the density of intelligent life in the universe.

One saloon regular who requested his name not be used said Cefin would pause to scribble in notebooks and scratch pads throughout his bartender shifts but abruptly abandoned the practice after installing a series of small ceiling devices he claimed were remote controlled air fresheners. "He seemed to lose interest in some conversations but would suddenly interject unusual and provocative subjects and personal stories that we'd never heard before."

While Sheriff's Deputies declined discussing charges, saloon owner Larry Sable who arrived after the arrest volunteered his thoughts. "Cefin is a smart guy but works too much. Too much on his own stuff that is! Once he got all digital and mixed up with smart ass Marines he'd come in for his shifts all bleary eyed and distant."

"Started telling me how he could peer into things, know ahead of time what's going to be said. Started finishing people's sentences for them. Not great for business! Might work for a Tarsus play but obviously not tonight!" 

The Salt Cedar Saloon was briefly shuttered for a few days last Spring when it was learned that the recently installed Pabst Blue Ribbon beer sign contained facial recognition software that collected data over an unencrypted wireless link. Owners promptly apologized and the beer distributor claimed no knowledge about the device, its purpose or the fate of the visual data collected.

-30-

NOTES: Transataumancy is divination by interpreting something seen or heard accidentally or unexpectedly, such as snatches of speech and conversations while walking through a crowd.

This 'news article' was prepared to illustrate a scenario intended for a local bartender who is also an event planner playwright.

Mossarium update

I think the bird's nest fern may have a baby.

Under the 110 and over the river

Just a quick shot from the pedestrian walkway beneath the 110 just east of Elysian Park as we trod Dan Koeppel's post-Thanksgiving walk (that's Dan of the Big Parade LA).

Many gorgeous, unexpected vistas discovered that day - many thanks to Dan and fellow trekkers!