The Rattle of the Taxis

I was recently successful in convincing my Gen-Z son to watch a few episodes of the critically acclaimed 1970s sitcom TAXI.  My goal was to compile a selection of juuust the right number of the best episodes -- not too many so he'd get tired of it and tap out, and not too few that he'd miss out on some true classics.

I think this experiment was a success, so I'm sharing the list of episodes here in the hopes that others may make use of it. I think that one can get a reasonably complete appreciation of a show from a small subset of episodes... but it has to be the right subset.

Please feel free to let me know which gems I left out, but see below for a few comments about ones that I skipped intentionally.

Anyway, the list below contains a core sequence of 19 episodes that sample the 5 seasons in broadcast order, followed by a two-parter from the 2nd season that serves well as a fitting finale. All told, we watched about 19% of the show (22 out of 114 episodes). Note that I'm not always using the official names of the episodes, and there are often parenthetical notes to remind myself about key bits...

Season 1, episode 1: Pilot

Season 1, episode 7: Louie's high school reunion

Season 2, episode 3: Reverend Jim, a Space Odyssey (the yellow light)

Season 2, episode 11: Latka's Revolting (adi-feebee)

Season 3, episode 5: Going Home (Jim sees his father)

Season 3, episode 8: Latka's cookies (Famous Amos)

Season 3, episode 13: Jim: Zen & all the TVs

Season 4, episode 1: Jim the Psychic

Season 4, episode 18: Ted Danson the hairdresser

Season 4, episode 20: Elegant Iggy

Season 4, episode 23/24: The Road Not Taken, parts 1 & 2

Season 5, episode 1: The Schloogel Show

Season 5, episode 2: Jim's Inheritance

Season 5, episode 3: Alex Goes Off the Wagon (the light)

Season 5, episode 10: Elanie and the Monk

Season 5, episode 13: Louie Moves Uptown (Penny Marshall)

Season 5, episode 19: Louie and the Blind Girl (Schloogel sequel)

Season 5, episode 20: Arnie Meets the Kids (Schloogel sequel)

Season 2, episode 23/24: Fantasy Borough, parts 1 & 2

The fitting finale

I think I successfully predicted that my kid wouldn't be hugely interested in the travails of Bobby's acting career, Tony's boxing career, or anything about first-season yawner John Burns.

I did specifically skip one of my own personal favorites (Season 4, episode 2: Vienna Waits), which I've mentioned on this blog before. I knew that the momentous and controversial thing that happens at the end wouldn't ever be addressed in any other episode, and that would grate on the kid's sensibilities. Back then, this was par for the course in TV-land. Now, something like that would be followed by at least a full season of soul-searching and coming-to-terms. This was a tough choice -- it did have The Song after all -- but when I ended up telling the kid about what happens,and the lack of follow-up, he confirmed my suspicions by talking about how it would've completely ruined two good characters' arcs. (His actual words may have just been "Total garbage," but six of one...)

The Spirit of '26

I couldn't let the quarter-millennium anniversary of my country's founding go unremarked!

I don't really have anything sufficiently profound or inspiring to say, but I did find something quite nice posted in social media a few hours ago by first-amendment warrior Greg Lukianoff (currently the president of a great organization called FIRE):

I’ve always found people who bristle at “American exceptionalism” kind of… weird. Not because I lack self-awareness — I’ve spent my career cataloging every way this country fails to live up to its own rules. But that’s exactly why I love it so damn much. We built a system designed to be shamed by its own founding documents, and it still delivered one of the most spectacular, world-altering runs in human history. A genuine force for human flourishing.

I also found the argument against American exceptionalism to be historically illiterate. Here’s a sample of what we were first at:

• The first large-scale democratic republic in human history — not a city-state, not a monarchy with a parliament bolted on, but a bold continental experiment in self-rule, popular sovereignty, and ordered liberty.
• A written Constitution (1789) with separation of powers and checks & balances — still the oldest national constitution in force anywhere.
• The Bill of Rights (1791): the first time a nation wrote “the government cannot touch these” into supreme law and actually meant it. A dare the world copied — from later rights charters to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Public land-grant universities and mass higher education (Morrill Act), opening college to ordinary people no aristocracy would have let near the gates. (but don’t get me started about what happened after we started. Massively federally funding it.)
• Kitty Hawk, 1903 — first controlled powered flight.
• The Moon, 1969 — still the only ones who’ve been there.
• The world’s largest economy since ~1890, powering unprecedented prosperity through grit and genius.
• The assembly line, skyscraper, transistor, personal computer, ARPANET — the backbone of the modern world.
• Telephone, phonograph, GPS — connecting and powering daily life.
• Surgical anesthesia, polio vaccine — saving and transforming millions of lives.
• Jazz, blues, rock ‘n’ roll — brand new American art forms that conquered the globe.
• Hollywood’s dreams, blue jeans, bourbon, and a culture so open a kid like me could devour sushi, burritos, stuffed cabbage, and tabouli in the same week and rightfully think of it all as American.

That's the part that fills me with genuine love and pride: not just the power or the wins, but the appetite for freedom, creativity, and reinvention. The audacity to say “We the People” and keep trying to live up to it. What do you love most about this truly exceptional country? 

Anyway, please go and watch the musical 1776, or maybe Robin Williams' underrated Moscow on the Hudson, or even Captain America: The First Avenger, on this fine day!

Resonances and Dancing Babies

In "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote," Borges sets up a fascinating thought experiment.  Can someone stretch their mind far enough to be able to re-create (word by word, but without actually "copying") a classic text that someone else wrote hundreds of years ago?

Borges is sly, so he's not really suggesting that anyone really attempt such a feat.  However, there are times when I've come across a text that channels my own experience to quite a spooky degree.  If I started writing about those experiences, who's to say whether I would put down the same words in the same order?  I once mentioned a resonant certainty about one line in Dylan's Tangled Up in Blue, but there is another. 

Well,
In this life, I've seen everything I can see, woman
I've seen lovers flying through the air hand in hand

In 1990, that was me, flying to London with the woman that I would ask to marry me at Stonehenge a few days in the future.

I've seen babies dancing in the midnight sun

In 1997, that was me, walking through Oslo's Vigeland Park in June, not realizing it was 11pm because it was still well-lit daylight.  Those creepy statues of babies, yes, dancing, but doing even weirder things, too, have stuck with me for decades.  I'm glad that I'm still close with the two friends that explored that place with me.

And I've seen dreams that came from the heavenly skies above

Oh, you don't want to know about 2002, when I was in the hospital for 11 days, and the morphine produced three consecutive days of dreams that I wrote down and will never forget.  Actually, this was more about 2012, when another (non-substance-assisted) dream had me standing at the foot of a thousand-foot high temple to the ancient Greek gods.  Despite not being an actual Hellenic pagan, in the dream I looked up, and sang and sang and sang.

I've seen old men crying at their own grave sides

In the late 1970s, channel 9 (WOR) in New York would play Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol every December.  (Link required because who would believe such a thing existed?) We all know what the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showed to ol' Ebeneezer, but in cartoon form, that just messed me up.

And I've seen pigs all sitting watching picture slides
But I never seen nothin' like you

In a proper life, the lows are low, but the highs are high.  It's one big package.

Do ya, do ya want my love? (Woman)
Do ya, do ya want my face? (I need it)
Do ya, do ya want my mind? (I'm sayin')
Do ya, do ya want my love?

Well I heard the crowd singin' out of tune
As they sat and sang 'Auld Lang Syne' by the light of the moon

Back to 1990 in London.  Nearing midnight on December 31, we went out and joined crowds near Big Ben.  However, when this group of American tourists started singing this, um, distinctly Scottish Hogmanay song, the Brits around us started giving us a bit of the stink eye.

I heard the preacher bangin' on the drums

In 1991, I was on a midwestern college campus, and I followed a classmate who wanted to gawk at the crowd gathered around "Brother Ted," a traveling preacher serving up some fire and brimstone (with, I'm pretty sure, some others on the drums and tamborines) in the quad.  My classmate began to heckle the guy something awful.  I was still mostly a skeptical atheist at the time, and I suppose I agreed with the content of the heckling, but I really didn't like the vibe.  I never went back for subsequent rounds of "debate."

And I heard the police playin' with their guns

Well, I think I've told the story before that I had a ticket on American Airlines Flight 11, Boston to LAX, on Saturday, September 15, 2001.  That flight was cancelled (you can do the rest of the math) and the airports were full of guns for the next few years.

But I never heard nothing like you

The rest just follows logically, doesn't it?  It's one big package.

In the country where the sky touches down on the field
She lay her down to rest in the morning sun
They come a-runnin' just to get a look
Just to feel, to touch her long black hair
They don't give a damn

But I never seen nothin' like you

Do ya, do ya want my love? (Woman)
Do ya, do ya want my face? (I need it)
Do ya, do ya want my mind? (I'm sayin')
Do ya, do ya want my love?

Well, I think you know what I'm trying to say, woman
That is, I'd like to save you for a rainy day
I've seen enough of the world to know
That I've got to get it all to get it all to grow

Do ya, do ya want my love? (Come on now)
Do ya, do ya want my face? (I need it)
Do ya, do ya want my mind? (Alright now)
Do ya, do ya want my blood?

Oh, look out
Do ya, do ya want my love?
Do ya, do ya want my love?

The New Game: Completed

With huge apologies to anyone out there who has been waiting for this, I'd like to bring to a close the TenStones Glass Bead Game that I started in December 2021.  In blog posts since then, I added four shiny stones to the board.  Since I really wanted to post this post today, I decided to sum it all up and briefly present the remaining six stones.  Here's the full board:

 
Going from bottom to top, I'll list all ten of the shiny baubles and give links to the earlier posts...

1. At the bottom is Ad Orientem (move #4), with thoughts about how we try to orient our souls in the right direction.
   
   
2. One up from the bottom is Hozier's Take Me To Church (move #1), which illustrates how "the right direction" sometimes takes the form of an idealized other person.
   
   
3. On the bottom right is O Henry's Gift of the Magi (move #3), further pounding home the point that self-sacrifice is a key that can unlock the doors discussed above.
   
   
4. On the bottom left is the first of today's new beads, which I suppose I can call Inversion (or maybe "The Upside Down").  In life there are often false dawns, feasts of fools, Yin's inside Yang's, and other times when everything seems flip-flopped.  Traditions around the winter holidays include Saturnalia, the Lord of Misrule, and Boxing Day... often with temporary swaps between the people in charge and the ones who do the dirty work.  My mind goes also to Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, who ominously sets out on his journey at dusk instead of the usual dawn.  Or Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do," in which the protagonists flout convention by drinking beer at noon on Tuesday.  The connection to O Henry is "right idea, wrong time."  The connection to Hozier is "no masters or kings, when the ritual begins."
   
   
5. At the center of it all is an enlarged bead in which I deposit Liebestod, the love-death.  (Why was I on such a roll with this loving self-sacrifice thing?) The image includes the alchemical pelican, who supposedly pecks itself to bleed in order to feed its children.  Is this the central heart, the ground-zero, of what it is to love?  Or does it go too far?  In my 20s, I know that I read way too much Joseph Campbell, and he made far-ranging connections between Wagner's Tristan & Isolde, Christian mysticism, and the way that knightly chivalry essentially redefined the concept of romantic love in the middle ages.  Is AMOR an inversion of ROMA?  Don't know, but I suspect that it wins even when it loses.
   
   
6. Above and to the right of center is good old Rory Williams, the Last Centurion (move #2).  Who doesn't love Rory the Roman?  Jerks, that's who.
   
   
7. Above and to the left of center is some combination of Indigo and The Blues.  This was the last puzzle piece to be filled in, and I'm still not quite sure about it.  There's a century of sadness in this musical genre based on flattened notes and minor keys.  I've heard that one reason that the color blue is associated with melancholy comes from certain African cultures in which one wears indigo-dyed clothing when in mourning.  (The image is from an online museum exhibit of those fascinating textiles.)  I'm pretty sure Blue Mondays are a necessary element of the Game, though.  If we have free will, it demands the possibility of mismatches in feelings... and you know where those can lead.  The connections with Liebestod should be clear.  Inversion?  Well, they say Robert Johnson had a similar adventure as did Young Goodman Brown.  Rory the Roman felt down & out quite a few times, too, but I don't think he'd ever think of erasing any of those moments across space & time.  I've said much more on this.
   
   
8. At the top-right is the Freemason's symbol of the Rough Ashlar, the rough-hewn raw material that each of us have as we set out on our moral journey.  Some compare it to "the stone that the builders rejected," which eventually becomes the cornerstone of the temple.  (Jesus wasn't playing around when he whipped out Psalm 118...)  You've got to learn to spot the good stuff when you see it, despite its outer appearances or circumstances.  This also reminds me of that old song "Swinging on a Star" -- yes, the one with the mule and the pig -- which isn't playing around either when it says you can be BETTER than you are.  The link to Rory is the cubical Pandorica.  The link to Liebestod is that all this hewing is what makes you worthy of someone else.
   
   
9. You'll know what's at the top-left if you zoom in on the image.  Yup, it's The Matrix, the movie from 1999 that introduced a lot of us to some interesting byways of philosophy, including the "simulation hypothesis" and transhumanism.  However, here I'm thinking more about the boots-on-the-ground choices that many of the characters needed to make:  Is the life I'm living as real & authentic as it could be?  Are dull illusions better than dangerous reality?  Is that mysterious other person... The One?  The link to deepest Indigo is mostly vibes... the dark glasses and goth discontent.  The link to Liebestod is everything Neo & Trinity did for each other.
   
   
10. Who's that at the top?  If you know your Al Hirschfeld Playbills, you may recognize Dulcinea, also known as Aldonza, the female lead of the musical Man of La Mancha.  I'm not going to provide a full plot summary, or even an opinionated lesson on the importance of this character to the Story.  All that I'll say is she's both subject and object for many of the examples of self-sacrificing love that I've highlighted across the rest of this game board... and, simultaneously, her final line of the play is a white-hot anthem of personal autonomy and individuation.  If you see these as contradictions that cannot possibly coexist, go watch this play.

This Glass Bead Game didn't quite go where I thought it was going to go, but it was definitely worth the exploration.  Seeing this cacophony of specific examples juxtaposed next to one another really does help make sense of the more abstract underlying ideas.  At least for me!

A Travel Guide to Neverness, version 2.0

A very long time ago, in a blogosphere far, far away, I gushed about my appreciation of the Neverness stories of sci-fi author David Zindell.  Then, about 13 years ago, I posted a PDF of what I called a Neverness FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document.

Now, since Zindell recently came out with a new novel set in this universe, I thought it was time to update that very old PDF.  I'm happy to announce version 2.0, linked here...

If links get broken, please also try:  https://tinyurl.com/nev-faq-2025

As before, this FAQ is spoiler-free for the plot, and it's split into four main parts:

1. The Geography of Neverness (with a new & improved map)
2. The Calendar of Neverness
3. The Professions of the Order
4. Glossary of Miscellaneous Neologisms

It's awesome that Zindell included his own glossary, timeline, and some other juicy behind-the-scenes material at the end of The Remembrancer's Tale, but I still think there's some unique value in my fanboy-ish production.  :-)

I'm also excited to see hints that Zindell is going to continue writing new books... there are hints out there of a Canterbury Tales-ish round robin, with The Scryer's Tale coming next, possibly followed by The Eschatologist's Tale, The Timekeeper's Tale, The Hakuist's Tale, and so on?

Oh, also, a quick bonus quote from The Remembrancer's Tale, just to make sure I never forget to highlight Zindell's transcendent prose...

His newly found zest seemed to create around him a sphere of diamond that shielded him from the stares of the passers-by no less than the wind.  And so he skated and skated, up through the Old City and the sparkling red glidderies of the Pilots' Quarter.  And up through a rising current of hope, as well, up through the deep blue sky and straight into the stars.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now.  Now I need to hunt down those old blog posts and add updates that point to the new version of the FAQ.  But more will be coming with this ol' blog, hopefully later this month.

Unexpected Bounty

I just wanted to make a quick note about the happy coincidence that some new books from my favorite writers have been coming out in recent days.

First, the dearly departed Harlan Ellison continues to publish, with the help of his literary executor -- and top-notch scribbler himself --  J. Michael Straczynski (see my paean to the latter's TV masterwork here).  I now have my copy of the "Greatest Hits," and I'm waiting until this fall for The Last Dangerous Visions.

However, I'm not sure what was more surprising to me: that TLDV is actually coming out, or that another favorite author of mine, David Zindell, has put out a new novel in the Neverness universe!  There's no need for me to summarize it here, since I've posted again and again about my enduring love for this setting.  I anticipate updating my "Travel Guide to Neverness" (a kind of spoiler-free FAQ) after a 13-year hiatus, too.

Now, what am I waiting for?  Off to read!

Dark Days?

Where has the year gone?  Today is the winter solstice, and I thought I'd revamp a quote-post with some wise words (not mine!) from the first year of this blog:

On this darkest day of the year (at least for those of us north of the equator), I thought a few inspirational words may be in order.  This was written by someone named "Knight Monk" in a LiveJournal group a few [2023 update: so so many] years ago.  I'm not omitting any intro; what follows is the entire post:

I am writing about more than sunlight, you know... although the swift-passing window of the Winter Day is no small matter either. These are the shortest days. And for many they are filled with hectic activity. For others they are cold and barren desert of Depression. Lao Tzu writes: "Movement overcomes cold."

Translating this into one's own practice means that during darkest days of Winter, instead of hiding under a comforter and napping all day, one should keep active. Do many things even if you feel like sitting still - this is how one makes it through the worst Winters, even the most terrible Winters of the mind.

 The converse also holds true. During the hot days of Summer, or even the most hectic and anxious times of any season, one should seek to still the mind and body. "Keeping still overcomes heat."

The words hold not just literal truth for the thermostat of the human body. Properly applied, the words can govern our moods. They put into the hands the reigns of the intellect. Anxiety and panic are also ruled by the still Player.

I wish everyone actively contemplative Dark Days and a fantastic New Year!  I'll try my best to finish that solo GBG, honest!  ;-)

Dinners with Erik and Andre

At some point, I'm really hoping to surprise everyone by bringing this ol' blog back to vibrant activity again.  We'll see if 2023 is the year for that.  Soon, I definitely plan to complete the "New" Glass Bead Game that I started in... um... December 2021.

For now, I've got two parallel quasi-reviews to share in this post.  I feel like the two things I'm discussing -- the 1981 movie My Dinner with Andre and Erik Hoel's 2021 novel The Revelations -- sort of rhyme with one another in some abstract analogical way.  I'm definitely recalling the late Charles Cameron's concept of "Double-Quotes" here.  After both, I'll muse about the why and how of this pairing.  But first, let's get to them:

Dinner #1: Andre and Wally

A few months ago, I recommended this iconic 1981 movie to a friend.  I'm forgetting the key detail of why I thought this particular movie was the ideal thing to recommend at the time, but I haven't forgotten her response: it was a strong dislike of, and visceral aversion to, the guy who did most of the talking: Andre Gregory.

Okay, that meant I had to rewatch the whole thing, then.  I idolized this movie when I first saw it in my mid-20s.  I remember being kind of envious of the life Andre led.  Spiritual experiences that make you feel truly alive?  Hey, I want that.  Seeing through the hypocrisy and shallowness of the world?  Yeah, man.

But now, in my mid-50s, I definitely saw it with new eyes.  I got the feeling Andre was leaving out some key details -- like, how okay was his wife with all this spiritual gallivanting?  It really looked like he was describing a combination mid-life crisis and nervous breakdown.  Despite the guy trying to get away from it all, it still really seemed like he retained many of his upper-class NYC pretensions.  "40 Jewish women?"  The suckling teddy bear?  Blech.  If you don't know what these phrases mean, please don't feel the need to find out.

After talking through those weird experiences, Andre pivots onto a tangent that could only be described as self-loathing and resentment.  THEN it's all the fault of a shadowy dystopian government or something?  Our man Vizzini eventually gets up the gumption to poke some holes in the most excessiest of Andre's excesses, but it still doesn't shift away from the overall feel that the audience is supposed to end up nodding along with Andre anyway.

Now, I'll say, starting around 1:22:40, there's a bit that still enthralls me.  Andre gets optimistic about rebuilding the human spirit on a small scale.  Repairing the world through art and constructing a new language of the heart.  His focus on movements like Findhorn pointed me in some inspiring directions, back in the day.  But I think one can work to build these kinds of things without all that other self-indulgent crap.  :-)

Dinner #2: A Neuroscientist's Paean

Right around this time, I was in the middle of reading Erik Hoel's newest novel.  I admit to being suckered in by the author's Substack post about the publishing process... which maybe was his secret plan all along to boost readership.  I'm still not 100% sure about whether I can actually recommend this novel to others, but I can try to say some spoiler-free things about it.

There were things that definitely weren't my cup of tea.  The main character was unlikable, somewhat by design for sure... but the author was also going for some undiagnosed mental illness that made it a bit hard to step into his P.O.V.  The main female character seemed to be a bit of authorial wish fulfillment (brilliant scientist... but with a history as a fashion model...)  There was ample discussion of the animal research done in the neuroscience lab, which carried definite squick factor.

However!  Hoel's choice of narratorial voice was nothing short of fascinating.  I don't think I've seen "omniscient third person" done so... omnisciently!  We spend a lot of time in the main characters' heads, but we randomly bop into the heads of a dozen others, and also into the "heads" of some animals, plants, and inanimate objects.  And those unannounced "bops" go deep, even if they're brief.  All befitting for a novel about consciousneess, I guess.  At one singular place in the book, the narrator pivots briefly -- but hard -- to second person.  That kind of floored me.

Hoel also drops adjective non-sequiturs, about once per page, which often had me scratching my head.  Why that word in that place?  Again, because everyone's thinking about consciouness and the mind, these often feel inexplicably right.

About the actual content of the characters' discussions about consciousness... interesting to say the least.  I prefer the times when they're just talking to one another about these ideas, rather than when the main character is just thinking about them.  (The Joycean stream of consciousness has a bit of an undertow.)  For a few months after finishing the novel, I was continuing to follow up on various bread crumbs of theories and ideas on the internet.  The author based some of it on his own experience as a neuroscientist, and he knows academia, for sure!  So, while it maybe wasn't everything I hoped it would be, I'm still glad I read it.

- - - - - - -

So, why this pairing?  Both the movie and the novel are about people who think deeply about what it means to be human in this modern age.  They both ask tough questions about how we can better understand our inner natures to figure out how to live better.  But they also both show (maybe unintentionally?) how we can never fully purge ourselves of the full range of foibles and rough-edged imperfections that make us human in the first place.

Ten Years of Weird

I'm interrupting our regularly scheduled programming for a quick anniversary acknowledgment.  This blog passed its official ten-year anniversary more than a year ago (the first post was on January 2, 2011), but I assert that today is an even more special day.  Exactly ten years ago today, I began my first April A-Z challenge.

Even though that wasn't even my first month-long blog challenge, I still see it as the birth of the true voice of this blog.  Prior to that, I had been focused much more narrowly on the two original topics of the blog: old-school D&D and Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game.  I think I even tried to always "pay the Joesky tax" (does anyone even remember what that means?!) on RPG posts, too.  But on April 1, 2012, I began to mentally remove those fetters.  That's when things really started to bloom.

To be clear, there's nothing at all wrong with my original topics.  I keep pondering & writing about them quite a bit.  But I think I really needed the freedom to more completely follow my weird, as they say.  (Note this internal blog link is from December 2011, so I think these juices were stewing prior to that fateful day exactly a decade ago.)

In April 2012, and over the next few years, I met quite a few fascinating people, one of which I count as one of the most important people in my life despite having never met in person.  I've gone through a lot in the last decade -- a new job, moving across the country, loss of a parent, hitting my 50s -- and this blog & its people have been lifelines at times.

I can't promise a return to super-active blogging over the next decade, but I still value this place and the chance it gives me to, well, be Cygnus!

Orienting us to Move 4 of the New Game

The Glass Bead Game that I've been constructing on the blog now plays on.  With the pacing of these posts, it may keep playing on through all of 2022 and into 2023... but no matter!  Ideas are eternal.  Today we see a new one posted into the foundational circle at the bottom of the board.  There's a stylized picture of a rising sun that, to me, evokes the Latin phrase AD ORIENTEM.

There are quite a few religious (and other) traditions in which the participants all face themselves in a particular direction as they pray or do other important things. In Christianity, that direction has traditionally been the East.  The original reasons for this choice are probably lost, but there are many possible explanations having to do with the past (the direction of Eden) or the future (how Jesus will approach Jerusalem in the second coming).  There are also modern-day controversies about whether the priest in the mass should face the people (ad populum) or join with them so everyone faces the east as one Body of Christ (ad orientem).

I'm sure many of you already know that in Islam, there are daily prayers that must be said while facing the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca.  There have been times in the past when the exact direction of this Qibla was not known precisely, and in some parts of the Muslim world they used other estimates like the closest of the four compass directions (i.e., facing due East isn't a bad guess if you're in Egypt), or the direction of the rising/setting of the bright star Canopus.

In Judaism, some pray facing the direction of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  In the Baháʼí faith, some pray facing the shrine of Baháʼu'lláh in the north of Israel.  In the much more recent tradition of Thelema, there are ceremonies in which one must face Aleister Crowley's former manor Boleskine House in the Scottish highlands.  (Fans of Led Zeppelin sometimes treat that place as a kind of Mecca, too, since Jimmy Page owned it from 1970 to 1992.)

For some reason, there's one other piece of trivia that sits in the same corner of my brain as the above:  In Major League Baseball, there's a rule that says baseball fields should be oriented towards the east/northeast, so as to avoid the glare of the setting sun interfering with the players' vision.  Not all parks obey that rule, but they trend around the recommended value as a statistical average.  There may be no direct supernatural questions of faith involved, but the Field of Dreams can be a sacred space, too.

How do these bits of worshipful wayfinding relate to the interconnected cells on our GBG board?  Hozier's Take Me To Church is certainly an exhortation to reorient one's soul to face the divine beloved.  As mentioned in the previous post, one cannot mention The Gift of the Magi without thinking of "his star in the east."

We'll continue to see where this all leads, but it's clear that we must always pivot to face what life throws at us.

Myrrh, uh, Move 3 in the New Game

The Great Big Glass Bead Game (GBGBG) plays on.  Please see the first two moves here and here, and apologies for being a bit tardy with my anticipated posting schedule of one move per week.  I also feel a tinge of regret for not starting this whole schmegegge a few weeks earlier, so I could've synchronized this move more closely with the Christmas season...

The new image, placed in the lower-right corner and connected to the previous two moves, represents the 1905 short story The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry.  Even if you've never read it (which I hadn't before now), you've probably seen its core plot played out in other books, movies, or TV shows.  There's a poor couple who love each other more than anything.  The husband sells his gold pocketwatch to buy his wife some stylish hair combs.  The wife cuts her long hair and sells it to buy him a special chain for his watch.  Irony -- especially the kind that tiptoed over the tightrope between comedy and tragedy -- was what paid the bills for Ol' Henry.

I suppose I'd never really wondered why this story had this particular name, but in the final paragraph, it's made clear.  One can attribute the invention of the Christmas present to those three Wise Men of the East.  Henry layed it on a bit thick, but his last few sentences do deserve to be better known:

And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Okay, so how does this relate to the other ideas placed on the board earlier? Linking Henry to Hozier is pretty straightforward, I think... self-abnegation for the beloved is a clear and common thread.  Likewise Rory the Roman.  He sacrificed 2000 years for Amy, and it should be noted that she sacrificed a lot for him, too (see: The Girl Who Waited).

There's one other tenuous, but sparkly, link.  Those two millennia in which Rory waited took place in an alternate timeline.  One key difference with our own was that there were no stars in the night sky, because the universe was in kind of a slow-motion collapse.  But the collective unconscious of humanity held on to some shred of memory of the stars, since the existence of underground "Star Cults" was mentioned briefly in hushed tones.  I can't help but think of the Magi's 

Star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright

which symbolized so much about this underground cult that started growing, right around the time Rory began standing guard.

Move 2 in the New Game

Here we are, on the last day of 2021.  I'd like to play the next move in the Hipbone-style GBG that I started in the previous post.  Since I'm using these games to explore the bounds of what makes sense (and what doesn't), I'll make a weird choice and put down an idea in a spot that's not connected at all to the first idea.  We'll fill in many links, I promise.

Thus, in the fourth spot down from the top (if you follow one tradition's "lightning flash" zigzag path), I place Rory Williams, the Last Centurion.

For readers who don't watch Doctor Who, Rory was one of the best characters from the 2010-2012 Matt Smith (11th Doctor) era.  I've waxed on about this Doctor, but not much about his human companions.  Rory started out as someone who got left behind, when his fiancee Amy Pond began traveling with the Doctor.  Then he turned into a bit of a joke about dying (and being brought back) multiple times.  But his shining moment was in the Season 5 episodes "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang," when he came back as an immortal (?) plastic (??) Roman centurion (?!?!) in the year 102 AD.  When Amy got trapped inside an impregnable cube called the Pandorica, which wouldn't open again until the year 2010, Rory realized that the only way to protect his one true love was to stand guard, and not waver, for the next two millennia.

The Doctor: Two thousand years, Rory. You won’t even sleep. You’ll be conscious every second. It would drive you mad.
Rory: Will she be safer if I stay? Look me in the eye and tell me she wouldn’t be safer.
The Doctor: Rory, you...
Rory: Answer me!
The Doctor: Yes. Obviously.
Rory: Then how could I leave her?
The Doctor: Why do you have to be so... human?
Rory: Because right now I’m not.

So, he waited.  And waited.  And became so much of a legend that museums had exhibits devoted to him.  I'll add another quote from one of those exhibits:

According to legend, wherever the Pandorica was taken, throughout its long history, the Centurion would be there guarding it. He appears as an iconic image in the artwork of many cultures. And there are several documented accounts of his appearances. And his warnings to the many who attempted to open the box before its time. His last recorded appearance was during the London Blitz in 1941. The warehouse where the Pandorica was stored was destroyed by incendiary bombs. But the box itself was found the next morning a safe distance from the blaze. There are eyewitness accounts from the night of the fire of a figure in Roman dress carrying the box from the flames.

My icon on the game board combines Rory's centurion helmet with the whirly circly pattern from the face of the giant cubical Pandorica.

I've always loved the trope of taking the goofiest of goofball characters and having them be the ones who choose to do the noblest, the most honorable, and the most difficult things for the sake of love.  Maybe we'll see more of this as the game progresses.  :-)

Playing a New Game

It may no longer be the heyday of the blogosphere, but I still enjoy coming here, jumping into the river of ideas that's been flowing since 2011, and being Cygnus again for a little while.

Thus, despite having no idea who even reads this blog any more, I'm going to start a new project to exercise my Glass Bead Gaming muscles.  Back in 2014, I decided to take a break from the top-down design process and just play one of the existing game variants.  The result was the "Ode to Joy" game that started here, ended here, and has its intermediate moves listed here.  Let's try that again.

For those who haven't seen it before, I'll paraphrase some of the explanations from the beginning of that game here.  The idea, when playing by the late great Charles Cameron's Hipbone rules, is to lay down a pattern of interconnected cells, like this...

...then start "composing" a game by positioning specific ideas in each cell.  The challenge is to always ensure that neighboring cells (connected by lines) correspond to ideas that are interconnected in some way, too.  The ideas can be text, images, pieces of music, logical arguments, or references to other works of art or science.  The connections between the ideas can be whatever one wants them to be.

There can be competitive or collaborative games, where multiple people take turns claiming cells one by one.  In this way, they can challenge one another to find connections between wildly disparate or disjointed ideas.  My Ode to Joy game in 2014 had a bit of successful crowdsourcing for new ideas, but there's value in the solitaire exercise, too.

Okay.  The seeds of this game were planted last week, when I heard the song discussed below on the radio, and I started thinking about its other implications.  As of right now, I have tentative ideas for 8 out of 10 cells on the board, but that may evolve.  I'll try to post new moves about once a week, but we'll see what life has in store.

My first move is to place Hozier's 2013 song Take Me to Church in the second cell up from the bottom.

 
Those who recognize the board from Kabbalah may know this cell as the dreamy, emotional realm of Yesod, but that's not too important here.  My silly icon above is just a juxtaposition of a cathedral with the memorable central image of the Tarot's Three of Swords card, whose triply pierced heart indicates, well, the sweet heartache that Hozier hints at in the chorus...

I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
Offer me my deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life

If you've heard the song, you know the verses go even further, essentially equating the singer's beloved with the only deity worthy of worship.  I've been there, dear readers, I've been there.  The good Irish songwriter, Andrew John Hozier-Byrne, also tossed in some barbs at his own native Catholicism -- specifically the doctrine of Original Sin -- for good measure.  Suffice to say that worship-leaders appropriating this song for Sunday services may not be reading the lyrics closely enough.  This possibility of misinterpretation reminds me of when Billy Joel joked about "elevator-muzak" versions of his (minor-key) song Pressure that were transposed into a peppy major key.

Hozier's Take Me to Church, by the way, is in the key of E minor, which a 17th century music textbook called "amorous and plaintive."  Maybe that's true for my entire planned game.  We'll see.

General Organa

Today would have been Carrie Fisher's 65th birthday.  I saw some other tributes online, and I thought they were missing some of the best pictures... including a scene from the original Marvel comic book that shows that Princess Leia was just as (if not more) badass as Han Solo... 

Humanism

Although I've got some other ideas for posts more relevant to the topics of this blog, I just wanted to take note of an inspiring exchange I saw on Twitter.  Specifically, I wanted to preserve a bunch of the life-affirming responses to the following question:

(If for any reason the above image isn't viewable, the question was "What makes you feel love or appreciation for humans?")

~ ~ ~

Loyalty, courage, intelligence, dedication, wit, and discipline, plus, the power of facing unpleasant facts and daring to know... Hopefully with enough joie de vivre to enjoy the fruits!

There are actually a lot of people who quietly get up every morning, go out, and help others.

The dissenters and oddballs and those who know so much of our social life is theatre. One smirk across a room, sharing an unspoken observation or bit of humour, is a gold mine of renewed faith.

The ability of humans to recognize humanity, and the human capacity for empathy over sympathy. Speaking and seeing beauty and joy in stereotypical "ugly" can transform the environment in a room.

Authenticity, loyalty, competence & a general good nature or humor are the easiest ways to get me to appreciate another person. Trustworthiness & accountability will earn my respect. Excellence gets my admiration. A mysterious mix of all of those things (sometimes) leads to love.

I think if you see everyone as a divinely inspired soul — and have transcended all the culturally-induced silliness like race, gender, etc. — the kindness and empathy just flows from you.

Magnanimity.

Observing them demonstrating love or appreciation for other humans or animals in general, and me, in particular.

How they are in a crisis. True natures appear. Usually for the better.

The ability to find joy, connection with others and nature in the midst of the brutal fleetingness of our existence.

Kindness.

I love that we are all made out of bits of stars that exploded billions of years ago, yet our warped time scale is all we can manage to wrap our minds around. It makes it easier for me to understand how irrational we all are and how slow society and cultures move.

The fact that we’re are all far more similar than we are different. We all suffer from the human condition. We all have potential. We all fall short of it. We all struggle and try. How can we not have love for each other?

Children playing and laughing.

Intelligence, skilfully applied that helps our species to one degree or another. Don't care about sinners and saints. I care about the person who makes a better world.

Disgruntled tired old man still petting the kitten even though he hates cats. The mail man that leaves treats for dogs. The woman that cleans and refills her bird feeder. Even though only one bird comes. Sometimes when you observe you see humans want to connect. Even if its small.

Having gratitude for all the things miniscule and humongous that touch my life just by knowing someone. It reminds me that love is great. Especially when it's reciprocated.

Other Fictions: Weird Modes

My new year's resolution for 2021 is to stay adamantly positive about the world.  In that vein, I'd like to recommend a few fictional universes for you all to get lost in.  If escapism makes you feel guilty, don't worry -- that's not all this is about.  Let's call it 25% getaway, 75% inspiration for the now.  Refueling rest stops for the soul.

I've got two primary recommendations -- for which the "delivery modes" may be as unconventional as the content -- and two secondary ones, which many of you probably already know about.

First, I'd like to tell you about a science-fiction podcast called The Strange Case of Starship Iris.  Created by Jessica Best, the first season was released between 2017 and 2019, and the second season just started earlier this week.  

 

 

Okay, it's the year 2191, and humanity has spread to the stars.  A few years prior to the events of the show, there was a war with an enigmatic race of purple aliens known as Dwarnians.  During the war, there was a military coup that saw the human worlds taken over by a kind, benevolent Intergalactic Republic.  (Shh... they're listening.)  In the first episode, we check in on an IGR research ship exploring Planet 5925, and we begin to meet our characters.

The above summary doesn't do it much justice, because it's really about those characters.  The official podcast description says "It's a story of outer space, survival, espionage, resistance, identity, friendship, found family, romance, and secrets. (Also there's jokes.)"

To that I'll add: ramen noodles, linguistics, awkward crushes, and songs!  Also, the Dwarnians may be on their way to a place in my heart -- alongside the Bajorans, Minbari, and Time Lords -- as one of the few alien cultures in which I'd truly like to immerse myself.

The characters live in my heart, too.  I hope you get to know them.

* * *

Second, I'd like to recommend the world of Whisperwind, which is delivered in the form of ASMR videos on Youtube.  Yes, these kinds of videos are often the subject of giggles and disdain, but there are gems.  There are pearls.  Sometimes the talents of the artist are just perfectly matched with the medium, and the Story (capitalization intended) just breathes through the screen.

It's kind of a D&D world, with a mix of humans, elves, gnomes, goblins, werewolves, vampires, and such.  But there's amazing depth... multiple fleshed-out towns and cities, quite a few parallel plot lines, and occasional flashbacks to an adventuring party from hundreds of years ago whose actions continue to have an effect on the present.  Amazingly, it's also all told in the second person.  You are a character in this story, and over time we come to learn just as much about your backstory, motivations, and secrets, as we do about the other characters (nearly all of whom are played by Sage, the creator of this story).

And, it's all very relaxing.  :-)

* * *

Lastly, my other two recommendations.  I'll be quick:

• I think the recently concluded 3rd season of Star Trek: Discovery has been the best season of Star Trek in its entire history.  Controversial?  Maybe, but I stand by it.  Some individual episodes of the other shows have been better, but taking the season-long arc as a whole?  This jaunt into the 32nd century shines.
  
  
• Just last week my family and I started watching The Watch, based on the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett.  I haven't read them, but now I might.  So much fun.

Socially Distant Miscellany

Have I collected some new blogworthy topics in these days of viral isolation?  You bet.  Let's juxtapose them with the tried and true "five things make a post."

(1) C2TH << AF2K ?

My previous post, as well as my lengthier 2015 musings -- both about Rush's classic tune Closer to the Heart -- managed to neglect one important thing: it doesn't exist in isolation.  This song is the first track on side two of its album, and it rhapsodizes about possible solutions to personal and societal problems.  However, it's the first song on side one, A Farewell to Kings, that both lays out those problems...

When they turn the pages of history,
When these days have passed long ago,
Will they read of us with sadness
For the seeds that we let grow?
We turned our gaze
From the castles in the distance.
Eyes cast down
On the path of least resistance.

...and indicates, indirectly, at the end, that solutions may be forthcoming:

Can't we raise our eyes
And make a start?
Can't we find the minds
To lead us closer to the heart?

I have a feeling that these songs are best when played back-to-back, like Queen's inseparable pair of "We" songs.

(2) Grognardia is Back

On my "2020 weird events" bingo card, alongside the tiger kings, murder hornets, and babies named XÆA-12, I didn't think I'd be noting the return of one of the main D&D OSR (Old School Renaissance) bloggers after 8 years of silence. But a few weeks ago, we started seeing posts from James Maliszewski again -- sometimes 2 or 3 in a day now -- like nothing at all happened since that last post from 2012.  I haven't been reading so closely to know if he's talked about the gap, but it's good to see him back again.  I'm kind of surprised that YDIS hasn't mentioned it...

(3) Alpha-Bytes Redux

For a while, I posted a lot about my obsession with weird alphabets.  Recently, when re-watching the classic movie The Fifth Element, I rediscovered a bit of odd linguistics that doesn't get talked about a lot.  Usually, when commenting on this movie's creative use of language, one sees a lot of discussion of the (spoken-only) alien "Divine Language" that director Luc Besson had star Milla Jovovich try to commit to memory.  But there was something interesting happening back on Earth, too.  The police had the word "Police" written in two parallel scripts on their uniforms and equipment.  Some searching found a high-resolution version, and it's possible to search for some phonetic realism in those two sets of characters...

 
For example, are there only 5 letters on the right, thus dispensing with the English oddity of a silent E?  Or do the stacked dot and dash count as two?  Both P and L are backwards, but the order still seems to go from left to right.  I can find no explanation of how or why anyone associated with this movie came up with this alt-alphabet, or if any real-life script inspired it.  Does anyone know anything more about it?

(4) Sci-Fi Reading & Reviews

Last year, I really enjoyed reading through the 1967 Dangerous Visions anthology, and I've been pondering a bit about doing another one.  I've got a copy of 1972's Again Dangerous Visions, but I suspect my reviews wouldn't be very positive.  I recently dug out a set of Fantasy & Science Fiction pulp magazines from the 1980s, and I noted a few favorites in them that I could reread and review, too.  However, I'm not too excited about either of those options.  If I'm going to reread something, I think it will be Neal Stephenson's Anathem.  When it came out in 2008, I breezed through it quickly, mostly on planes... but I think it deserves another go.  We'll see.

(5) Sad News

A few days ago, I learned that one of my personal heroes and mentors, Charles Cameron, has passed away.  I blogged about him several times, and it made my year when I saw that he showed up in the comments!  God speed, Magister Ludi.