Mechanical (4)

 As a way of tying things up, if one assumes that empirical reason enters a phenomenological world of electromagnetism, the truth can become lie. This is because observations are verified for an illusory reality, the hyper-accuracy of machines and variable time (see The Airtight Garage.)

Invariable time contains within it the balance of sun and moon, Apollo and Artemis or the spin of Earth. Mechanical truth or the zodiac. 

"Wait until they have mastered the basic movements and can do them without conscious thought." (Dumarest in The Coming Event, page 24)

The illusory reality distorts natural rhythms with calculation (head). The body needs no calculation (see movement, 1/2 Essay 5) and reacts with no thought (or beyond the speed of thought, Bruce Lee.) Freedom of body produces an order that is proportionate. 

The large-scale similarities of the world are proportionate symbols (constellations) of the rhythms of desire and personal reaction (to events.)

Desire and personal reaction are distorted by a calculated reality (the dragon of news.) When Apollo is part of the balance of life, the fertile universe of revival exists in Dionysus, degradation that revives yearly with the debasement and lustiness of orgiastic ritual.

"Degeneration?"

She nodded then explained. "It happens when a person gets too old or has lived too long in dreams. For a while he seems to be rational, then physical stress causes a mental relapse. For him now this is another fantasy.." (The Coming Event, page 50)

The guy is confused because that is the nature of degradation. Renewal is a psychic necessity that modernity appears to deny. 'Facts' exist in a bizarre reality of distorted confusion where there is neither fruitful nor facile activity.

Confusion is sown by the news (words) of empirical observation of the illusory reality of variable time (sterile calculation) and number so persuasive to the ego (head) enmeshed in the electronic system.

GET DOWN AND BASIC with 

THE DIONYSIA

Mechanical (3)

Mathematical calculations distort the natural rhythms of proportion (body), entering a parallel system of number that is persuasive to the ego. The parallel system operates with variable time (machines, computers) and we enter a future of Google Maps and the Amazon House. 

The counter to that is that undeveloped societies contain the rhythms of the spirit (of the commune). This takes the form of superstitions, the kind one finds in the early stories by Gilbert Hernandez of Love and Rockets. 

The sense of primitive power and morbid fertility is contained in a couple of early Iron Man stories by Archie Goodwin. Both take place on Caribbean islands, and both feature Johnny Craig as artist, presumably for his jungle experience. 

Iron Man #14

As one might guess, the voodoo phantom turns out to be Hoyt, who exploits a geochemical fault to turn superstitions into reality.

In the other story, an industrial accident on a Stark subsidiary is damped-down with Namor's help, but at the expense of the island's fertile soil.

Iron Man #25

A psychical component is imbued by a fertile universe (of morbid revival). Ghosts inhabit milieux which are rich and fertile for the reason the physical degradation imbues spiritual force. The Greek ruin syndrome.

The physical reality of things - the debasement or lustiness - is basically Dionysus. 

Apollo, the vain god, is a vision of perfection.  Visions are useful things (to the creative mind), but modernity confuses them with the real thing. Superstition is an attribute of the morbid or fecund that imbues the psyche with power. 

The superstitious medicine men live off of natural rhythms that exist in invariable time, the herbs that sustain a body's natural resistance. Muscular beats, the body-in-motion. The physical situation is laced with mechanisms - the sounds of cicadas - that cannot be calculated, that just exist (see HB110, the psychic element of a physical reality of invariable time.)   

The 1972 Jamaican film 

THE HARDER THEY COME 

Is imbued with this type of morbid force. Bookended by the previous classic, Django, the corrupt studios divert struggling musician Ivan into ganja smuggling, and he sings and shoots his way to a bloody climax.

For sheer physical atmosphere that is imbued with grinding rhythms of spiritual performances, the film is second only to a couple of Godard efforts. 

Rasta or colonial Christianity are both what could be called superstitions. The degree to which superstitions rely on a physical degradation that ultimately and cyclically revives is something modernity blithely ignores.

I mean, a compost heap is a physically degraded object that imbues health and cyclical fertility,  smell, succulence, psychic luster. These are the physical rhythms of invariable time. 

In short, superstition is not just a psychic condition, but a result of the physical and mechanical power of fertility, ploughing the soil, morbidity (the Creole bayou.) 

The modern world, in its sterile illusions of number, can only have a distorted psyche, the result of the distortion of natural rhythm. 

Mechanical (2)

 Going back to 1/2 Essay 5, there's no match between the static information on DNA and the phenotypical motions. There are two different universes, and it takes involved calculation to make any connections atall - see fish-swarms 1/2 Essay 7 (logical regression etc.)

So, in that case, there IS a connection? Only if it's calculated and using algorithms. So how it it that genotype 'gives rise' to phenotype (physique)?

The basic problem of a martial artist is known as "psychic stoppage". This occurs when he is engaged in a deadly contest with his antagonist, and his mind attaches itself to thoughts or any object it encounters. Unlike the fluid mind in everyday life, his mind is "stopped", incapable of flowing from one object to another without stickiness or clogginess. At this point, the martial artist ceases to be master of himself,  and as a result,  his tools no longer express themselves in their suchness. So to have something in one's mind means that it is preoccupied and has no time for anything else; however, to attempt to remove the thought already in it is to refill it with another something!

Ultimately, one should be "purposeless". By "purposeless" is not meant mere absence of things where vacant nothingness prevails. The object is not to be stuck with thought process. (Bruce Lee, Artist of Life, page 203,204)

The Western syndrome is to calculate answers to things, so the assumption is every has a calculated answer. But, if you take human feet, there cannot be any calculated connection to genotype. Feet are for walking and running and kicking and have mechanical properties. 

The same for hands; touching the toes is a mechanical property of the athletic body in motion (involving the spine, the graceful, dancelike attribute of the human figure, musical, affecting.) So how is that possible?

Kwan-yin (Avalokitesvara), the Goddess of Mercy, is sometimes represented with one thousand arms, each holding a different instrument. If her mind stops with the use, for instance of a spear, all the other arms (999) will be of no use whatever. It is only because of her mind not stopping with the use of one arm, but moving to another, that her arms prove useful with the utmost degree of efficiency. Thus this figure is meant to demonstrate that when the ultimate truth is realised, even as many as one thousand arms on one body may each be serviceable in one way or another. (page 206)

"Purposeless" and "no thought" mean there is no calculation possible for the multiplicity of cases (take a centipede or a spider.)

The Western mind will find this hard to accept - and this is almost a type of weakness. After all, the body is strong, just Let It Be. The active body clearly operates in invariable time or rhythm.

The divine rhythms of the planets also operate in invariable time. However, calculation tells us that time is variable - and this is the world we live in. Variable time allows calculations to be made that are hyper-accurate. 

This places us in an alternate reality of hyper-accuracy. However, as described in the last two posts, this is a sterile reality that does not recognize degraded environments that continually revive. The cycles that take place in invariable time.

In other words, variable time is quintessentially sterile, antiseptic, lablike or hospital-like. Google Maps will probably inevitably lead to the Amazon House of attached heads and expressive algorithms (see TofF2).

Accuracy and calculation are persuasive to the ego, but weak to the active body, to the psyche that thrives on degraded environments, lichens and fungi on fallen trees.

The degradation is physical strength and psychical revival and existing in invariable time. The psyche is empowered and able to be independent of spirit and rebel. This is the world one must return to for the sake of natural rhythms.

Mechanical (1)

Mechanics, Jaime Hernandez

Like anything else, prolonged imitative drill will certainly promote mechanical precision and habitual routine security. However, it is exactly this kind of "particular security" or "crutch" that limits and blocks the total growth of a martial artist. (Bruce Lee, Artist of Life, page 137)

This is a typical quote from Lee. He means 'mechanical' to mean a repeated rhythm, a routine rather than free-flowing action (or 'broken rhythm.) My use is in the sense of a physical reality, so when Lee writes..

However, we know, through instinctive body feel, that in any physical movement and for each individual there is always a most efficient and alive manner to accomplish the purpose of the performance, that is, with regard to proper leverage, balance in motion, economical and efficient use of motion and energy and so forth. (page 139)

.. that is also mechanical - so it's just a way of speaking.

Similarly, Lee says 'complementary actions' for fighting, while I often use 'oppositional'. Again, this is a way of speaking,  and I tend to refer to feuding or low-level fighting (in communes or between men and women.)

Because we live in a system of variable time (machines, computers) I want to emphasise the mechanics of motion in invariable time. Obviously, this is what Lee did; words are just words, the understanding is what counts (thought, spirit, psyche, honesty.)

Ghost of Hoppers (P143-145)

Jaime's sort of leftover underworld of dingy decadence has a fantastic zing, which might strike one as odd. How can dying dogs a la Cerberus have a zing about them?

Because destruction spurs on revival. It's a melancholic notion that figures high in Latin culture and ceremonial. Jaime's weird portmanteaux of dried-up swimming pools and foul-smelling waters allow the psyche to flourish like lichen in highly textured cracks.

While modernity doesn't know where it's going physically or its ass from its elbow, the sterility of the culture becomes ever more evident. The confusions of an antiseptic culture built on variable time (machines, ones and zeros) are an invitation to psychic weakness 

The exact opposite of an antiseptic culture of distorted measurement (Google Maps, the Amazon House of the future) is the physical degradation of dingy neighbourhoods where lichen and high spirits (kids) rise together in the invariable rhythms of communal settings, fields, quiet running streams, fallen trees, bees.

WOUNDED ANIMALyoutu.be/KZQnu2KK8Ec

1/2 Essay (7)

 Despite the X-Men films voice-over on mutations,  mutations don't cause evolution,  only selection of mutations. The difference is key, since then it all depends on the process of selection. Mutations - as previously discussed - are miscopies or faulty copies, taking the form of insertions, deletions, duplications or inversions.

If something happens to be useful to a behavioural action, it may eventually be selected. These events are terribly rare but, if they occur, that constitutes an evolutionary change. So, in other words, mutations are not evolutionary, the behavioural action is evolutionary.

Behaviour of the organism, with all its phenotypes. As was previously discussed, interacting genetic variants are connected to any particular phenotype by fish-swarm activity of selected sequences on the code (fish-swarms approximate behaviour, see hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2013/574735 )

Fish-swarm behaviour is not that intelligent, but neither is it random. It's certainly not order, but it is certainly highly rhythmic and with inertia and impetus.

With no central coordination, the process is bound to be somewhat anarchic. How does that result in order (the physique)? It's an order that depends on the freedom to choose, on mutations which are purely random.

Order is freedom to choose, since it's not tyrannical order. Order and freedom are connected by proportion that is rhythmic and propulsive. Whereas 'they' say mutations are random and evolutionary, there would be no freedom of choice without randomness. It's not the mutations but the choice of behaviour that constitutes evolution. 

Rather than being random, evolution is the exact opposite of random that is selected by behavioural activity (similar to fish-swarms.) The oppositional tendency between order and freedom is connected by proportion (body.)

Proportion, as previously discussed, contains nooks and crannies that cycle or discharge substances. Rather than being a sterile system of electromagnetic detection and logical analysis (DNA), the proportions of the body cycle nutrients and wastes. 

The cyclical system has an order that is connected to the degradation and revival from decay (well, I'm talking about death actually), the wider ecological situation. This is the physical reality. Natural rhythms revive from decay and destruction. 

Destruction is ecologically healthy in that it promotes regrowth. Destruction or decay are part of the proportionate system. The same applies to the nooks and crannies of a dingy town, a jungle fastness (Blashford-Snell used TNT to cross the Panamanian wilderness; that's fine as jungle clearings automatically respring.)

The compulsions of modernity don't recognise destruction as healthy. A compulsive order of number is sterile and distorts natural rhythms (the profane serpent.) 'Clean meat', gene-editing and vegan menus are the ghastly result. 

Meat, fish, veg. The rotational fertility of a mixed farm. Cyclical health is a system of destruction and revival. Rotation is strength, and reflects the mechanical universe (of heavenly spin, P200) that has Earth as the Mother. Strength is health - physique and psyche - while a compulsive order of number sows weakness and confusion. 

Gene-editing (see prev) develops crops (algorithmically?) at the expense of soil. The distorted rhythms sown by this reality (of ones and zeros, see Jirel Meets Magic) is driven by words coming out of the dragon of news (prev.)

Words which have the conviction of ego (numbers, natch.) without the revival that comes from destruction  in-the-field. Numbers and calculation are the illusion that exists outside of the rhythms of a mechanical universe or the wheel of Fate (zodiac, prev.)

The physical and the psyche are linked by Fortune, by the facility of music and the hippies vibe (1/2 Essay 6). Where words have not come to dominate (see Goodbye to Language), the psyche is powered by the rhythms of physical destruction and revival. Dying dogs, magic realms of local 'news'.

UNDERGROUND ROOTyoutu.be/8EimPkxos6E

1/2 Essay (6)

 Miscoded genes are selected if the acrobatics of survival determine it (see prev) - via balance and proportion, natch. Nothing will work unless it is mechanically sound. One of the most blatant examples is a mating ball of cactus bees. These are solitary, not hive bees, and a female has emerged from her nest to be swarmed by competing males.

Bees are nothing if not machine-like but of course, their behaviour revolves round desire and personal reaction. In the picture, one male emerges with the female and the others disperse. 

Is that what one would call Darwinian selection? First of all, the winning bee has to be mechanically sound or athletic, and it's clear the genes do not evolve to fit the acrobatic ticket (1/2 Essay 5). There is no evolution, only mistakes of coding. Only if the mistakes happen to fit acrobatically is it coded into the genetic sequence (ie most genes go unexpressed.)

The basic point is one can map gene expression to any particular body part or function so it can appear as if genes are highly specific (to form and function.) But that is only so because there are so many unexpressed genes that do nor fit the mechanics of the body activity. 

Acolytes adopt a topsy-turvy argument because it suits their distorted logic (of the head.) It's a circular argument that says genes are selective, whereas actually only miscoded genes (mistakes) are selected by the acrobatics of survival. 

This means that the physical situation - of balance and proportion - develops as we see it in nature. The symbiosis of bees and flowers, for example, the activity of gathering pollen (for pollination) and Nectar (for food.)

Bees are quintessentially mechanical creatures. The hymenoptera (family) are double-winged, and tiny hooks connect the two wings in flight. They have specialised feathered paws for Nectar collection.

The physical situation of action always comes first and develops in symbiosis with others. Therefore, the time factor (rhythm) and the mechanics are part of one thing.

Instead of a circular argument inside the mirror of illusions (detection -DNA -and logic), there is the circle of life and death, or physical reality.

The physical reality contains dirt in the essential cycle of minerals and humus (in the desert burrows.) Death stalks the lunar landscape of the desert because that is part of life.

Without death, life would just be a subroutine of some AI computer (electromagnetism, sun.) The moon is intrinsically physical.

(Wessel)

Whereas a circular (closed) argument satisfies the ego (head) with number and logic, the physical reality contains the rhythms of life and the symbols of life and death.

With the moon comes the cyclical activity in the physical world that contains the myths and practices of Man as well as animals.

In short, the rhythms and the desires, the personal reaction of individuals comprise the physical world. One can't detach the physical from the psyche because of the fundamental nature of rhythm in reality. In music, in expression, in fighting, survival.

This basically softens the idea of survival, since it is not simply a heartless game of apparent randomness. It has to be musical and athletic first and foremost and in-tune with a lunar landscape of strong physical substance. 

Without the strength, mental faculties are weak and distorted, despite all the Nobels bandied about. The facile nature of survival is left out of the modern equation (of the ego.) It's less a case of calculation than just Let It Be(e). Vibe with the flow, man.

WINGS

It's easy enough then to recognize large-scale similarities and the primordial truths that connect us to the universe of rhythm (invariable time) that needs no calculation. And that is a type of rebellion from whatever it is that modernity has become. 

1/2 Essay (5)

 The establishment in O Lucky Man is a Westminster club of maritime vintage. Lindsay, as the anti-establishment figure, remorselessly pursues a satirical objective - with the loyalty of his actors a given - and it's a fine edge from that to dictatorship - but it's a long way from being a slave to finance,  number or any of the other modern ills.

LA represents the 'old establishment' of spirit and force, not a million miles from the ancient Roman Vesta (eternal flame) and legions. In If, the feeling is that the old traditions (of the public school - which in Britain means private) are dying or corrupt (he is on record as saying he enjoyed his school days.)

Rebelling throughout history is all too common,  but there is a question in modernity as to what the establishment is. I remember reading Charles A Reich's The Greening of America; somewhere in there he says the seat of power is empty, there is no one there. According to Carpenter's They Live! the seat of power is on Mars. 

Rebelling creates frisson, and it's a sign of individual consciousness ('consciousness 3' in Reich's book, or the 60s counterculture.) In ancient days (and maybe in the British Empire) frisson was par for the course (along with poison and knives at night.) The world was a response to the desire and personal reaction of the individual consciousness. 

In that way, the 60s and the hippies were going back to pre-industrial times. So, possibly 'the establishment' in modernity is simply a distorted truth of calculation and hyper-accuracy (in relative time) that makes it impossible to rebel when everything is blandsville?

However, as noted in 1/2 Essay 4, the distortions are not mechanically true. They are true relativistically, not mechanically - the large-scale similarities and the wheel of the zodiac. 

'The establishment', in other words, is a parallel reality of number (head, not body.) This impinges quite a lot on what one considers to be healthful both psychically and physically. 

There is something quite fantastical about the doctrines of establishment figures like Richard Dawkins because they take place inside the head. The body is a system of moving joints so athletically balanced that they are able to operate as one organism in action.

One can't correlate movement (time) in an athletic dimension with non-movement (genes on DNA) - It's physically and mechanically inconceivable.  So, why is DNA so highly regarded by the establishment? Because it's a creation of the head and the illusions of logical thought (that convincesthe ego.) DNA is detectable via X-ray diffraction (electromagnetism) and essentially that is a parallel reality of hyper-accuracy. 

If one was to study the sun up close one would be entering a parallel reality; the balance is achieved by the moon and tidal forces of water (in the womb.) The moon in Dumarest has a running motif of a white skull, which is how the hero remembers it from his savage days as a child-hunter.

Again, large-scale similarities implicate cyclical movements (spin) that are mechanically true. In the mechanically true situation (of animals that move and hunt and spin webs), plants grow prophylactics and germs are free-flowing. The body is exposed to risk and cure and grows strong.

In other words, a cyclical situation of mechanical truth engenders health. The body responds positively.  Psychically, desire is a reaction to the mechanics of the situation. 

The difference with a robot is it has no desire (the news item on a google-bot that apparently had human characteristics must have been confusing meaning with wholesale copying of tropes. I mean, it's fairly easy to so; the whole of pop music is copying, it's a case of individual taste.)

There's no point denying that humans can have ro robotic attributes as both have to be mechanically accurate, but robots cannot have psyche or the consciousness of desire. The google-bot episode could indicate a certain danger of the future telling stories (through expressive algorithms) that are distortions of human desire.

As for desire, the entire porn-industry is irrelevant if one can express one's desires with relatively few inhibitions. Ironically, the more inhibited the society the more penchant for porn (this was partly the subject of the Moore/Gebbie Lost Girls.)

The fertile world is not that inhibited and is the province of health. The jungle is the province of psychic calm.

SUPER APEYoutu.be/IJErlguYAZ8

1/2 Essay (4)

Another comment McDowell makes on the dvd is that Lindsay at the end scene has an expression of "cruelty". LA came from an Indian military family, and McDowell likens his appearance to a Roman, with the senator-type hair. 

It's certainly true to say that the force of rebellion LA conjures is quite harsh. As I said somewhere before, rebellion is a type of feud, and in the days of ancient Rome there was continual feuding (within families even). Senators were ethically in charge, but military prowess could easily win the next caesar (till stabbed in the back, natch.)

The 'cruelty' of LA is really a way of not accepting things in an easy, cavalier way. The film is a physical struggle (for the perfectly cast McDowell) and the reward is a moral strength that modernity appears to lack.

The real problem with modernity is that information is accepted as 'fact' because it IS information. There is the Cyclan of EC Tubb's Dumarest saga, and towards the end of the series there are indications that the cybers are gradually going mad. 

Is reality distorted by information - and how? It's the hermetic argument of phenomenology that all data can be illusory - the ending to the classic sci-fi trip Dark Star (Carpenter 1973.)

If we live in a phenomenological world, is that tantamount to an illusion? It's not that things aren't true, it's that electromagnetism is itself illusory. Calculated and hyper-accurate (relative time.) The world of machines (see The Airtight Garage.)

Where there are large-scale similarities (spirals, galaxies, see What the F***?5) there has to be invariable time since that's the nature of a spin. In that sense, perhaps the universe is paradoxical as the UVS website contends? The more measured the less real it is, the more convincing to the acolytes. 

The universe of spin is the one of proportionate balance and primordial truth. Any knowledge lacking this is lacking the vital ingredient - understanding (O Lucky Man.) This also links to Dumarest, who has a 'cruel mouth', his determination to find the primordial Earth of his birth. 

His dalliances with women are another aspect of proportion; the troughs and niches of the female form, the milk-bearing breasts, sirens of fertility. A body which is proportionate has leverage and is mechanically fit  

The proportions of the body are fitted to cyclical activities, whether it's circulation of blood or expulsion of waste. The cyclical situation is the one where life leads to death and decay leads to revival. 

On the larger scale, dirt in fields is fertile, livestock in rotation with crops and fallow. Weeds and nettles supplying space for insect larvae, birds drifting by. Physical reality, dirt, germs and nature's prophylactics. The calmness of psyche imbued by strength of body.

This is the (ancient) world of desire and personal reaction, rather than the one of information. If the universe is primordially proportionate (spin) then the leverage and balance we have as humans is a mechanical attribute of that primordial truth. If you read Homer, there are rhythmic repetitions and refrains such as the 'eternal dawn over the sea' which carry the impetus of the journey on the minstrel's lyre. 

The spin of the Earth is one of the divine rhythms that simplify living as a physical act (waking, bathing.) Phenomenology sows confusion because it seeks to do without large-scale similarities that are mechanically true, such as the wheel of the zodiac (Earthspin.)

The mechanical truth of the joints of the body speaks of large-scale similarities that act in the world. Essentially, a phenomenological future is one without psyche, one where numbers alone dominate the ego, where brain-implants equal 'health'.

The Cyclan future in Dumarest, the madness of the bomb in Dark Star. An illusion of illusory words (the dragon of news, prev) where desire and personal reaction are distorted.

The rhythmic dance of life has its decadence and melancholy. Desire is teamed with death and it's real. Rather than wither in a bizarre universe of facts in distorted confusion, reality is fruitful and facile. If you look at this Granada tile, there are 4 dabs of sky blue and several score of smudges in green, yellow, brown. The large-scale similarities are there to see.

Granada tile

1/2 Essay (3)

 Rugged sequences of events; pain and pleasure; farce; tragedy. I'm talking about O Lucky Man, the 1974 film by Lindsay Anderson (A6) featuring the picaresque adventures of Malcolm McDowell as Alex (from the previous film If.)

After encountering a bizarre pig-man at a secret research establishment, the gaunt and shell-shocked Alex stumbles into an idyllic church at harvest festival time. He is not allowed to partake of the fruits, but the pleasant maiden opens her bosom and his thirst is quenched.

The film is a grueling ride round 70s Britain, and seemed to offend the establishment at the time. It is partly about understanding  - and indeed confusion. In the commentary, McDowell notes that the line "There are 3.3 million prisoners worldwide" was put in simply as a deliberately meaningless number.

The milk from a teat is meaningful and enriching while numbers are not. Just the other day, PM Boris Johnson announced an agricultural drive that proposed that "Schools, prisons and hospitals be required to offer a vegan meal option."

Bulls and cows are out of fashion, which is exactly what a cyclical, mixed farm of rotating crops, fallow and livestock requires for fertility. In the modern language of hygiene, efficient monetary monoculture rules, with accompanying build-up of toxic outfall (see Ohio pigs, English rivers prev.)

While we continually approach a neat and ordered world that is boring, the trend to physical perfection is at the expense of psyche. This trend can probably be dated from Raphael (D4), and now we have the physical perfection of science (in this country seen in Love Island.)

Physical perfection without psyche has as its other facet experiment gone mad (the pig-man), The DNA fallacy, 'clean meat'. While physical perfection cab be calculated and boosted a la Love Island, proportions contain within themselves imperfections, which are simply those of decadence and decay.

A town, like a body, contains areas of grime, grunge, slime and detritus, nooks and crannies and niches. With balance comes the cyclical order that modernity tries to replace with vegan diets.

With cyclical decadence (and sucking at the teat) comes the calmness of psyche that is needed for understanding. The modern game of numbers is most prevalent in the basic business of buying and selling. 

In Nectar of Heaven(#24), Tubb paints a psychotic picture of fraudulent capital. These scenes, and especially the mirrors, are reminiscent of Jirel Meets Magic (prev.) The dual-note that confounds (with one's and zeros), that hypnotizes - until the glass shatters. 

The signals were too complex for him to follow; data received and relayed by the computer,  the bank which alone made such fast trading possible. The flickers alone were enough to tire the eyes, to induce a near-hypnotic statecin which judgement could be distorted and action delayed..

Again he began to pace the room,  seeing his reflected image grow and diminish, waver and distort as reflection was caught by reflection, the whole painted with shifting hues. (page 140, 141, 145).

Numbers and calculation as opposed to proportionate balance; the dark areas and cesspits that maintain fertility, that germs frequent, that strengthen immune-responses. 

In the country at large, proportionate balance(the spin of the planets, invariable time, dance) is needed for the ecology, the free-growing herbs, nettles, butterfly larvae (in India, Modi's anti-free market stance was forced by the actions of the small farmers, prev.)

While calculation and number approach a hygienic area of toxic outfalls, proportion always contains the niches that are unsightly, sordid, rancid and generally grimy.

Dumarest is always having to wash (ritual bathing, see Valeria prev.) Sweaty and covered with the stench of dried blood and physical pursuits from rotten neighbourhoods. Why wash except to clean off dirt? In Incident on Ath, the society is as neat and orderly as a child's toy, and again a psychotic element emerges.

The rugged, grimy and sweaty imperfections of proportion are the ones where rebellion and free-thought prosper. One can't buy and sell sweat, and that might be the understanding (epistemology) that Alex receives in the end sequence. 

O LUCKY MAN 

1/2 Essay (2)

(JA - what's wrong with you, girl?)

 

Spot the difference. A manual-drive car always has mirrors for the reason that a mirror supplies accurate navigation for the driver down a highway, weaving into the fast lane.

Roman roads are famously straight, and the invention of the wheel ought really to be that of a wheel-plus-axle, which converts rotation into straight-line movement. 

Straight-line movement seems difficult for animals to compute - see P200, speed = distance/time. 

Animals are able to compute rhythmic travel, such as the canter of a horse. The rhythm is the physical capability of the body-in-action. 

A neat example is Jack Palance throwing a discus in 

LE MEPRIS (about 15 min in)

(What the F***?5). He is basically being an animal in his act, and gets good leverage by rising off the ground without the need for Olympian spinning. It's a simple mechanism of action/reaction with the inertia given to the disc.

This is a good indicator that there are two different worlds - or directions. One is straight-line movement, grounded and efficient. The other is antagonist muscles that operate in rhythmic opposition.

In Roman times both these existed together (chariot races, natch.) Nowadays, the direction is moving into the electronic area. A mirror is an indicator of the electronic reality (that the head perceives.)

Self-drive cars don't need mirrors precisely because they are already INSIDE the mirror (of illusions) or electromagnetism. Cameras are identical to mirrors (looking in all directions.)

A mirror is an indicator of electronics, while digital cameras are the reality. If a mirror is an illusion (that can be 'Breaking Glass') so is the digital reality. Google Maps are accurate illusions that supply modernity with information. 

If it's accurate, why should that matter? Again, because it has no physical capability. The direction of modernity is into a future that attaches to the head (ego, number.) As I've been saying for a while, physical leverage and the easy stress of thoughtless reaction (a la Raducanu) are a type of dance of life that imbues the psyche with calm (Raducanu for one is the most blasé person.)

Modernity is not easy but mysterious and sinister (listen to 'White Boy'). Without the calm, without the natural rhythm, there is a psychic distortion. Often this takes the form of numerical compulsion,  a compulsion of the ego that is outside the physical reality of leverage and reaction.

There is compulsive hygiene (clean machines) outside of the cyclical areas where germs proliferate (in the fields.) Prophylactic are basically contained in cyclical areas (of growth), often in the shape of astringent spices.

The pungency of products (Indian curries) is often a good indicator. Apart from prophylactics, common germs strengthen immune-responses and together the body is prepared, guarded against disorders.

Google Maps, like the Amazon House (see TofF2), has a straight-line direction that is inside the mirror of illusions. The fact it's accurate shouldn't be surprising since "It's supposed to be" (see CC Beck, prev.)

1/2 Essay (1 of several)

 WHITE BOY

The confusion of modernity lies in its fantastic accuracy,  which itself is dependent on the ego-compulsion of numbers (see proportion and leverage, Revivalism 7). The compulsion to create an illusion of electromagnetism, algorithms and numerical fixation that appears real to the ego.

Earth's magnetic field since roundabout the14th century has been known to influence lodestones, identifying North and South poles and allowing bearings to be taken,  adding to the observation of polestar for navigators and mariners.

In a sense, GPS-navigation is just a much more sophisticated version, easily allowing the current and desired direction to be correlated and transmitted as instructions or programs. What is it that makes this a fantastic illusion?

A mirror provides exactly the same scene, except for the fact that there are no sequences of physical events; it's an electromagnetic illusion.  That doesn't matter since, as the sign says on lorries, 'if you can't see my mirrors,  I can't see you.' 

Complete accuracy is all that's desired. But is complete accuracy all there is? No, because there are sequences of events that go from past to present to future. The physical reality of life and death occurring in invariable time (spin, Earth, stars, serpents, Quetzalcoatl).

The accuracy of electromagnetism takes place in a parallel reality of logic (number) that convinces the ego (of acolytes). Brain over body (death, decay, rejuvenation). Apollo over Dionysus. 

So, the fact that something doesn't matter for road traffic is a casual attitude,  even though it's obviously correct! The point is, animals don't know that and there is plenty of roadkill (prey for scavengers, or possibly the pot.)

If the universe was logical, none of that would matter (see Korvac, W8), but it's a sequence of events; lifedeath,  mythical stories in the sky. In the sky there are large-scale similarities. We see them in the trees, the forests, the meandering streams.

Large-scale similarities are stories. What is life without a story? The physical reality provides large-scale similarities that feed the psyche with meaning (epistemology,  understanding). The large-scale similarities can't be told or directed, they simply are (see Haeckel and Art Nouveau, Tudor symbols, prev.) 

Freedom with a type of universal order (the medieval Church.) Symbols and serpents tell stories. It's either that or Musk's boring hyper-loops.

Serpent Mound, Ohio (painting by Tower)

What the F***? (5)

 There may be those who wonder where all this US Constitution critique is going? Well, there are elemental principles such as freedom and order, seemingly poles apart. In a universe of invariable spin, they are connected. 

Newgrange motifs (see prev.)

The primitive and primal is always seemingly simple, but it contains opposites.  A spiral is not pure order (logic) nor is it pure freedom (chaos), but it contains both in the sense of proportion. 

Spirals contain number, but their elaboration is such that they are not contained by number. First or elemental principles are always going to be a type of reality, and it's fooling ourselves to pretend otherwise.  A town which is built on proportion will always be subject to order,  but it will also tend to have grungy areas and cesspits which organically appear in nooks and crannies.

This is the type of reality depicted by Milton Caniff (see Shanghai TofF2 - and of course Hyboria HB20.) Nooks and crannies are a consequence of proportion; they are not entirely ordered and neither are they entirely clean.

Again, cleanliness is poles apart from filth, but the two are connected by proportion. There was the quote from Fuller's Earth, by Robert Robertson (P36) that urine and mud were the first detergents. 

A detergent has to be strong, and dirt contains minerals and acids that are strong (corrosive). Mud for washing was generally gathered on river banks, and you could say a river is something that has intrinsic proportion in its banks and its flow (the Ganges).

This sounds relatively Oriental.

The ultimate destination of Bruce's journey was peace of mind - the true meaning of life. I feel confident that because Bruce chose the path of self-knowledge over accumulation of facts, and the path of self-expression over image-enhancement, that he did reach his destiny with a peaceful mind. (Linda Lee Cadwell, Preface, Artist of Life)

The ego evades following reality so that what appears convincing is simply a convincing illusion. To the West, numbers and logic are the reality, but this evades the primal reality of proportion (body).

In Ukraine, Russia and the West are locked in conflict which is purely technological and evades the fact that each city (historically) has its independence and ability to self-govern and therefore rebel. Technological conquest is the convincing illusion of modernity (see Afghanistan,  prev.)

Rebellion is the occurrence that is often sweaty and grimy - as with Tatu, prev - and is the human-oriented activity that both sides evade. Freedom within order (the Church) is something of a medieval concept (neither the Pope nor the Orthodox are siding with Ukraine despite the human situation.)

Lee's first Hong Kong movie (actually shot in Thailand), The Big Boss, is a case-in-point. The work of shovelling around ice-blocks is grimy enough, while the settings are scenic perfection of jungle glades,  knotty wood enclaves and grass pavilions. 

The film is elemental in that action comes before words; there are short and sharp exchanges with almost pantomime gestures.

Stance and stoicism are the key. In the elemental situation,  the sultry girl gathers water by the river and is pestered by one of the ruffians. This type of episode gradually builds up tension to the climactic fight.

The elemental atmosphere is both grungy (fairly filthy) and clean like the water, soil and plants of the forest, going the opposite way to modernity. 

CHBB

Going through a local shopping mall, I saw a kid doing cartwheels. That's cool enough, but it occurred to me the type of action that's increasingly rare - spontaneous and exuberant.  The modern world is going somewhere but not via cartwheels. Not via the physical awareness of action, more like a sort of electrical headware. Everything, be it cartwheels, riding a ploughshare or throwing a discus contribute to a physical area and hence the psychic calm that results (see scene towards beginning of Le Mepris of Palance throwing a discus, Lang responds "Now you understand Greek culture.")

From The Light free newspaper

The total efficiency of electricity contrasts with the evaporation of sweat from active bodies. Electricity inhabits the variable time of one's and zeros (GPS machines), while sweat inhabits the cyclical time of Earthspin (free and wild as the ocean.)

Total efficiency is an invention of variable time (of machines) that tends to put the psyche (awareness of physical reality) to sleep. Somewhat like The Midwich Cuckoos, the next generation is an xenogenesis that is happy to 'sleep with the machines' (Kantner lyric).

The dingy chicken runs and country dances (see HB210 to P200 via HB209, invariable time) are needed to wake people up again, to plunge into the wildness that is under constant 'protection'.

It struck me that investment in environmental spaces by such as Bill Gates and John Burton (the World Land Trust) are not going to relate the physical land (of active empowerment with a mule) to psyche. All the investment in the world is not going to change the total electrification of reality.