How can you see the wave, when you're the water? Always be questioning. That's the only defence. What can't you say? And why?

If a piece of steel or a piece of salt, consisting of atoms one next to the other, can have such interesting properties; if water—which is nothing but these little blobs, mile upon mile of the same thing over the earth—can form waves and foam, and make rushing noises and strange patterns as it runs over cement; if all of this, all the life of a stream of water, can be nothing but a pile of atoms, how much more is possible? If instead of arranging the atoms in some definite pattern, again and again repeated, on and on, or even forming little lumps of complexity like the odor of violets, we make an arrangement which is always different from place to place, with different kinds of atoms arranged in many ways, continually changing, not repeating, how much more marvelously is it possible that this thing might behave? Is it possible that that “thing” walking back and forth in front of you, talking to you, is a great glob of these atoms in a very complex arrangement, such that the sheer complexity of it staggers the imagination as to what it can do? When we say we are a pile of atoms, we do not mean we are merely a pile of atoms, because a pile of atoms which is not repeated from one to the other might well have the possibilities which you see before you in the mirror.

A sink brims with water. You pull the plug. The water stirs. A vortex materializes. It blooms into a tiny whirlpool, growing as if it were alive. In a minute the whirl extends from surface to drain, animating the whole basin. An ever changing cascade of water molecules swirls through the tornado, transmuting the whirlpool's being from moment to moment. Yet the whirlpool persists, essentially unchanged, dancing on the edge of collapse. “We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves,” wrote Norbert Wiener.

As the sink empties, all of its water passes through the spiral. When finally the basin of water has sunk from the bowl to the cistern pipes, where does the form of the whirlpool go? For that matter, where did it come from?

You look at me, from close up you look at me, closer and closer and then we play cyclops, we look closer and closer at one another and our eyes get larger, they come closer, they merge into one and the two cyclopses look at each other, blending as they breathe, our mouths touch and struggle in gentle warmth, biting each other with their lips, barely holding their tongues on their teeth, playing in corners where a heavy air comes and goes with an old perfume and a silence. Then my hands go to sink into your hair, to cherish slowly the depth of your hair while we kiss as if our mouths were filled with flowers or with fish, with lively movements and dark fragrance. And if we bite each other the pain is sweet, and if we smother each other in a brief and terrible sucking in together of our breaths, that momentary death is beautiful. And there is but one saliva and one flavor of ripe fruit, and I feel you tremble against me like a moon on the water.

The tadpoles in the quiet bay of the brook are now far past the stage of inky black little wrigglers attached by their two little sticky pads to any stick or leaf, merely breathing through their gills, and lashing with their hair-fine cilia. A dark brown skin—really gold spots mottling the black—now proclaims the leopard frogs they will become.

LRC [LewRockwell.com] is a damned ugly sight and they do indeed preach to the choir—but I find it similar to enjoying a hideously fat woman belt out some of my favorite operas.

The Great Flood

Computers are universal machines, their potential extends uniformly over a boundless expanse of tasks. Human potentials, on the other hand, are strong in areas long important for survival, but weak in things far removed. Imagine a “landscape of human competence,” having lowlands with labels like “arithmetic” and “rote memorization”, foothills like “theorem proving” and “chess playing,” and high mountain peaks labeled “locomotion,” “hand-eye coordination” and “social interaction.” We all live in the solid mountaintops, but it takes great effort to reach the rest of the terrain, and only a few of us work each patch.

Advancing computer performance is like water slowly flooding the landscape. A half century ago it began to drown the lowlands, driving out human calculators and record clerks, but leaving most of us dry. Now the flood has reached the foothills, and our outposts there are contemplating retreat. We feel safe on our peaks, but, at the present rate, those too will be submerged within another half century. I propose that we build Arks as that day nears, and adopt a seafaring life! For now, though, we must rely on our representatives in the lowlands to tell us what water is really like.

I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.

i'm a fountain of blood
in the shape of a girl
you're the bird on the brim
hypnotized by the whirl

drink me—make me feel real
wet your beak in the stream
the game we're playing is life
love's a two way dream

leave me now—return tonight
tide will show you the way
if you forget my name
you will go astray
like a killer whale trapped in a bay

i'm a path of cinders
burning under your feet
you're the one who walks me
i'm your one way street

i'm a whisper in water
a secret for you to hear
you're the one who grows distant
when I beckon you near

i'm a tree that grows hearts
one for each that you take
you're the intruders hand
i'm the branch that you break

leave me now — return tonight
tide will show you the way
if you forget my name
you will go astray

like a killer whale trapped in a bay

In Biblical times when people looked up at a clear, blue sky, they saw a transparent dome that covered the entire flat earth. It was an awesome object, created by God himself on the second day to hold back the endless quantities of blue water clearly visible above it. There was water above and water beyond the horizon; doubtless there was also water below. God had divided the waters “above” from the waters “below” by constructing this immense dome that held open the space for dry land. In ancient Egypt the dome had been the goddess Nut, who arched her back over the earth so that only her hands and feet touched the ground. She was the night sky, and the sun, the god Ra, was born from her every morning. In the Hebrew Bible the dome is called “raqi'a,” meaning a firm substance, and rendered in the King James translation as “the firmament”—a concept that cannot be understood independently of the flat earth cosmology in which it made sense. The firmament in Biblical times was understood to be firm only by the will of God. If God were angered, as everyone believed had actually happened in the time of Noah, “the windows of heaven” and “the fountains of the deep” could burst open once again and those lovely blue waters would destroy the earth. God was said to have promised not to do it a second time and to have sealed this covenant with the rainbow, but who could predict the behavior of God? A watery Sword of Damocles hung over every creature on the flat earth, and God held the threads.

Dean Allen is six foot three, myopic, of Scots-Dutch descent, and losing his hair. A recovering graphic designer, he lives in the South of France with Gail Armstrong, two swell kids, two cats he loathes and some dogs. He is squeamish around insects and crying children. His favourite word as of this revision is dipsomaniac. Formerly a fan of the phrase “to clean one’s own rifle” in reference to the act of onanism, he now prefers one coined by Corey Keegan of Toronto: “landing the Johnson account”. He likes the music hard and loud. Once, during a game of mock sloganeering, his friend Gerry shouted “French filmmakers out of Hollywood!”, to which Dean shot back, “French filmmakers out of Candace Bergen!” Money falls like water through his hands. Though well past the age where doing so would be feasible, were he to front a rock ’n roll band, it would be named Egregious Philbin. He needs to drink more water and curb his childish interests, though clearly these two needs have nothing in common. The funniest thing Dean has ever witnessed was some footage of narcoleptic dogs in a Nova documentary on sleep disorders. The second funniest was an interview with a farmer whose Tourette’s Syndrome manifested itself not in tics or verbal outbursts but in an overwhelming temptation to touch a running chainsaw to his pantleg. If Dean recalls correctly, that was in a Nova documentary on neurological disorders. A gifted mimic, he nonetheless eschews regional accents for comic effect. In a previous working life, he occasionally took respite from the stresses of the day by locking the door of the office bathroom, turning out the lights and just, like, standing there for a really long time. He admires several people. He is a lousy correspondent, and for that he is sorry. Except for the times when he is ridiculously overprepared, he is inevitably underprepared. In general, he finds patriots, professional actors, cult-stud academics, neoconservatives, chiropractors and usability experts to be silly. At the moment his favourite PHP function is extract(). Sometimes a nice piece of grilled beefsteak is all Dean requires to be truly happy. He has of late, with comic results, been using power tools. His pen of choice is the Pilot Hi-Tecpoint V5 Extra Fine. If Dean has pissed you off, he is sorry. If it were down to you and him, Dean would prefer to drive. He doesn’t understand golf at all. Right now he is several pages into a hundred books. Since moving to the country, he sometimes goes days without looking in a mirror, and when eventually he does it’s always a bit jarring. Dean enjoys card games. He can and — even when not called upon to do so — will recite Orson Welles’ cuckoo clock speech from The Third Man. After several tries, he has the waffles just about right, but still cannot prevent messy batter runoff. Though he has referred to it in the past, Dean is not entirely sure what the subjunctive clause is. He is likewise uncertain of the proper way to pronounce gerund.

[Eve:] “What's the singing of the birds, Adam?”

[Adam:] “The birds themselves that become air. To sing is to spill oneself in drops of air, in threads of air, to tremble. Then the birds are ripe and their throat falls in leaves, and their leaves are soft, pungent, sometimes quick.”

[…]

[Eve:] “I want to sing! I have some stiffled air, an air of bird and me… I will sing!”

[Adam:] “You are always singing but don't realize it. You are just as water. The rocks don't realize it either and their silent minerals gather and sing, silently.”

As for you, Gilgamesh,
fill your belly with good things;
day and night, night and day, dance and be merry,
feast and rejoice.
Let your clothes be fresh,
bathe yourself in water,
cherish the little child that holds your hand,
and make your wife happy in your embrace;
for this too is the lot of man.

On the Beach
Of that inflamed Sea, he stood and call'd
His Legions, Angel Forms, who lay intrans't
Thick as Autumnal Leaves that strow the Brooks
In Vallombrosa

Even I realized that money was to politicians what the eucalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter, and something to crap on.

Participating in the most radical synchronous chatgroups must be like playing in an enormous, never-ending, crazy game, or attending a perpetual linguistic party, where you bring your language, not a bottle.

Why should we cherish all sentient beings?
Because sentient beings are the roots of the tree-of-awakening.
The Bodhisattvas and the Buddhas are the flowers and fruits.
Compassion is the water for the roots.