CYBEREAL FUTURE

Erica’s, aka Babyldorkgalactinerd's, comment on my last post grew to be and deserves a whole post in reply.

Chuckle, I do at the resistance you show to my idea that the extrapolated future of society is to make online games the real world so that linking books and transporters really do replace fuel farts of dangerous vehicles, exploitation of exotic cultures and rape of natural resources. Wars can be fought by gamers in their world if that's what they want, leaving the rest of us free of collateral damage to develop coagulations of kindred minds with no will or way to harm others.

For one who rejects cybereality in such a future, it will be like visiting Grand Canyon before the tourist village was established, to be seen as the ruins of a no longer needed tourist industry, visited by occasional lovers of beauty, nature and history who still know the real world is nature, being much less violated now that the clever manipulations of society are restricted to their version of the real world with minimal affect on the natural world.

Back when Buckminster Fuller was fueling World Games I perceived the possibility of a species split for humanity which I labeled the Twidgets and the Naturals. His think tank, composed of the cream of the graduating classes in chemistry, physiology, earth sciences, was dedicated to the possibility of containing all the earth degrading effects of technology within giant city sized domes which recycled all its effects without affecting the environment outside. It was pretty far out, such a structure, but ran out of energy when his candle burned out.

But could not all the human addictions — family, fame, power, luxury — acquired within western civilization, beyond food and shelter, be satisfied by a cyberworld of ones own choice, if one must be had at all? Hell, if you don’t want to live in any of the worlds you find, take the good parts you do find and fashion your own. Expansion unlimited, no need to exploit indigenous people. My own daughter, once addicted to Everquest, confessed to a preference to relating to me in the game rather than visiting (now the game is heaven, but that's another story). The only transportation required would be of the half breeds who live on their natural farms and deliver their produce and food products to twidgets in the cybereal world, door to door, having become atrophically, apathetically effete in the natural world, more so than addiction to autos and air-conditioning has already accomplished. Of course there will be cross overs of all degree, whatever works.

The past is littered with simple myths taken as reality by people in their time, this one would be to save us from the inevitable future resulting from western culture’s myth of antagonism toward and destruction of nature and each other by which we live in its invisible prison without bars, by deactivating its effect on the planet as the population willingly adopts the more benign myth of a proxy life behind the cybereal separation and its limitless room for imperial expansion and clever innovation.

URU, ANYONE?

I just discovered that they finally released a Mac version of the online game, Uru. I was a Myst fan from day one and a devotee of firm resolve after Riven. Like many of the tangents I take to the merest of nuance, the beautiful first island in Riven where the trees were leveled for pages in the linking books outside the wooden fence and the biological bounty allowed to flourish within put me on the lookout for an ecological theme to the game. As wonderful as it was, Riven never made me forget the idea of having an adventurous saga of a game wherein success requires adaptation to the peculiar natures of various habitats visited, not learning cultural language and counting so much as the tao of the place. The lesson within the game was to be that life is smooth when going with the ways of nature and a struggle when attempting to bend nature to ones desires for convenience, expedience, status and conquest; those actions that have populated mankind into a corner here on dear old mother Earth. I had even framed letters to the Rand Brothers, the original Myst team and Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael, proposing a collaboration on such a project just as the brothers went their separate ways. My resolve evaporated into pipe dreams before I mailed them.

One of the reasons I mention this is that not only will I be distracted from the decaying political scene which only churns my stomach, that I will probably be posting far less and then only in observations from the garden and the game. We’ll see how long it takes for either to have political nuances.

Although I am a rank novice so far and the Mac version is short some of the deluxe features available to pc peeps, I have learned that groups and individuals can develop their own worlds that may either remain private or go public. I see it as a way to meet fellow bloggers and have conversational exchange (I haven't learned how or earned enough merit to do that yet and must stand there like a deaf mute while a beautiful girl makes gestures and says things to me I cannot answer except by being obnoxious by jumping up and down or getting too close) and mutual activities. This may be the future of society, with only the true romantics even stepping outside their reality tunnel life inside to experience life first hand. The game can be quite absorbing.

•

I’ve given up on all but one of the tomato plants and am planting squash and new arugula in their place since both succumbed to bugs. New tomato seeds where the squash were. This is only the second full summer I have had a garden and the extremes of three rainless months of June-Sept in the 100°s every day last year and heavy rains on all but twenty days through out this year yet to be warmer than 95° by the end of July this year so far has left me far more clueless than I would have ever expected. Both extremes ruined the tomatoes — drought toughened ‘em up so that when it finally rained the new growth/moisture exploded them, while constant rain kept them so juicy that part went to rot before the rest ripened unless I picked them before fully ripe. This all means that next summer will be as new an experience as the first two — and who knows what normal is?

ZODIAC GARDEN

This moonflower came up as a stray vine in a planter
full of sunflower seedlings at the foot of the shed

moonflower 70° ascention, sunflower setting, coffee cup in Scorpio cooling

?

Is it not contradiction of the most paradoxical nature to try to establish the right of free speech for everyone in the same population that is ruled by the majority?

Is it not denial of the most ironic nature to try to believe the majority rules when it is the minority elite’s major money that out shouts any votes?

Is it not conundrum of the most futile nature that while our speech may claim to be free, our silence is paid for and costs us dearly every day.

Too much couth and ruth,
not enough sooth and truth.

WALKING THE CATS

Hai, Todd! Weze goze for woks?

G'mornin' Glory

An Okra, windfree

Lucy in yer eye with rhymin's

A brighter shade of red
(the only perfect tomato,
grown in shade under tree,
less water in all this rain)

Tomato slices?

Why, it's a bloomin', splashin' Rose

Nau we has fun,
arncha glad?

•

A captive of the internet
With wordless rage I'm beset
And yet
I have this need to say
How wonderful it is to spend a day
Out of the fray

•

One thing though, gleaned from my scribblings over the past week, I noticed that China just executed the head of their FDA for taking bribes to allow fake drugs on the market. In the US, it would appear to be the next stepping stone congress folks see as their priorities after being elected, between getting re-elected, and before becoming stock holding lobbyists for the very companies that bribed them. How can 99% of their constituency expect to be represented when 1% has 100% of their ear. I'm not for capital punishment, I'm just sayin'.

176th DAY OF RAIN THIS YEAR!

… and we who love it

chinese tallow thrives alive


canteloupe, then bloom right here

Tomato and amorattafly

marigold and friend

Barbados y pride thereof

pepperlonely … not when you're hot!

Sunflower from face down

spider face up

MORE CONCRETE, HOLD THE JAM

I used to be able to contribute comments to the local weekly, still-not-weird-enough-for-me rag, Austin Chronicle, until I accomplished my liberation from the phone and am now disqualified, even with the security systems available on the internet, email and a password are not enough for them — while nearly every business is either built on such or accepts it by now. No telling how modern a version of provincialism one is apt to find. My purpose in posting today was not to snipe at the Chronicle, though it did feel good.

I was reading over some old stuff and came across a letter I wrote to the paper last time traffic was the buzz for buses, and realized that what I spoke of then (10/20/2000, before we really had something to worry about) is a more poignant metaphor now, if getting a better federal administration were the project and non participation in the democratic process were the problem instead of buses and lack of riders.

Dear Chron,
I’ve been interested to note that in the recent debate over roads, rails or buses being waged in your letters to the editor, no one has mentioned the heart of the problem. Anyone can quote what a good mass transit system schedule should be, but until the traffic through which it must operate is at least as fast and regular as we expect the buses to be, all the money and planning and voting will be just as ineffective as it always has been. As long as buses carry only pedestrians, they will be that slow.

Until these opinionated drivers actually put their butts on the bus as a daily routine — not just some token visit to sniff at the body odors — no transportation system will get through traffic any faster than the fastest car (my friend has one that can go a million miles an hour and still is late half the time). Yes buses can meet schedules, but not in traffic filled with drivers that should be on the bus! Anyone not willing to do their personal share of making the transportation system better by riding the bus and working within the system through participation and constructive criticism doesn’t deserve an opinion about the solution, they are the problem. Something about a sacred cow/ox getting gored.

Here’s the crux of the matter; rather than the convenience of paying lip service to the environmental good sense of better mass transit through conversation, council meetings and ballot box and then sitting back and waiting for the powers that be to make it so, the basic solution to this vital problem requires that people will have to vote that way every day by riding the bus instead of driving their car to make anything they cast a ballot for work. Spending new money now on anything more than public education about this corner we’ve driven ourselves into can only go to line the pockets of the same bureaucracy that hasn’t done it yet. Let’s get the system we have now working by having it begin to carry people who actually have cars but choose to keep them out of the bus’ way. It’s time to have a true modern social revelation and not just something about which one offers opinions from the comfort of one’s personal air conditioned isolation chamber, sacred cow though it may be here in the land of oil and wide open spaces.

And while I’m at it, what about all these new high tech industries using their expertise to network with their computer-operating employees at home. The savings on parking, work space and employee insurance overhead alone should offer them enough incentive to start today. There’s more traffic off the road and gas money in commuter’s pocket and mass transit didn’t have a thing to do with it.

Just as self interest in auto luxury debilitates community facility, Congress' unheard promises to corporate lobbyists and re-election campaigns debilitate any effective response to the public will.

HOME GROWN HEAVEN

The precipitation has been so consistent this entire year a rain forest would surely sprout all about if such water were the norm. The garden needs to be twice as large to accommodated the burgeoning crops, the tallest of which stunt the smaller with their shade. I must pick tomatoes before they are red or they go straight to water, so pumped full by the stems they are.

Green's green cherry tomatoes

Coming around to red

Daily Offering

Symbol of Self Sustainability

LETTING THE GENIE OUT

.... . ...
.. . .. . .....
.. . ..... . ... . ...
... . .. . ...
.. .. ...
.. .. . . .. .
.. . .. . ... . ...
.. . .. . ... ..
... . . . ..
... .
with all those words
for all those birds
‘nd all the herds
enjoyed by
all the nerds,
man’s giant brain
pulls a mighty train
with the natural strain
of pride’s wasteful disdain
So loaded with their versions
and their artificial diversions
eschewing actual emersion
for academic perversion.
Who kneels at yesterday’s rite
In a prayer to speak the spell right
as if wisdom can come from what we write
like Jesus and Mohammed, a worldwright
for what is said about the pen’s might
being greater than the sword’s
is worship of what's written
ignoring what's been litten

with all those words …