What's the meaning of this?

Sitting before our gate. A horse-drawn wagon of seasoned firewood. 

It belonged to a neighbor, a malicious lunatic, who had been harassing us for two decades as her meager funds and IQ would permit. I had seen the wood lying around her property. Now, here it was, neatly stacked. 

Was this a pease offering? We were not in the habit of consulting with her, and were in fact quite happy with that arrangement. 

Leaning against the wagon was an ancient motorbike with a small two-cycle engine. What is this? I had never seen this item before. Probably, it's junk. Look at the rust. Hasn't run for ages, probably. 

It kicked right off. 

I rode it down the road. We live in the mountains and I did not expect it to take me down the hill and back. 

It did. 

What's the meaning of this?

"...and further despondent sayeth not."

Wandering Alone in a Dark City

Wandering alone in a dark city. Series of Victorian or Georgian - boxy with two floors and a portico on the second. It was just here, but in my walking I have lost it. This is the street where it was, where she was. She seemed interested - but now I hear her. She's broadcasting to a companion about me, ridicule, meant for me to hear.

Now it does not matter where the boxy Georgian was.

I go and there are others. I sit. It's lunchtime. I say, in answer to a question, no, I have no job.

Someone sitting with me says, heave to, we'll find you work. He leads me into the yard where various workers pass. Ask that one, he counsels. She is an ordinary cook. I ask her, but only to gratify my ad hoc career counselor. I am not very coherent, but she isn't listening.

Alone, I see back at table a strange object take shape under the rice and gravy. I am utterly revolted. It seems to be a male appendage!

I bolt the table. Something must be done. But what? How does one complain about such disgusting outrage?

While I'm wandering about in the courtyard I see my place has been cleared. I'm not really sad I have not that to deal with.

I have only my solitary state in a noir set of unconcerned strangers, my natural dreamstate.

From Timothy by Saphire to you!

Focus Group

We are somehow assembled in a studio. It's a TV commercial, we are to understand. None of us comprehend how those two facts came to be, or even if they are in fact facts. Still we wait here, because, TV.  

Four of us sit all in a row. We are instructed to move our arms left, forward, down, in a very definite gesture, while singing a jingle, the lyrics helpfully whispered to us. We are told it will all make sense in the final compiled product so we do as we are told. Every member of an orchestra has a small part which does not create harmony on its own, we are told.

I am instructed to toss the contents of a bowl, apparently filled with graffiti, into the face of a smiling lady down below, remembering the jingle. It's all right, I am assured, it won't reach her. So I do as I'm told. The graffiti does in fact reach her, as anybody might have foreseen. 

I could never remember the lines of the silly song so I faked it under my breath. It did not seem to matter. 

We are next ushered into an auditorium and a pleasant lady addresses us.

"You have all been the subjects of an experiment to determine just how gullible the public can be. An anonymous political entity wondered just how far the general population might be led by an electronic leash. You have all been most cooperative and extremely encouraging. Thank you very much."

And she exits smiling through a door in the wall behind her … which immediately dissolves into wall and ceases to exist.

We sit. There is now one door in our room and it's to our rear and it is glass so we see if we turn it is an exit onto the street.

"TV, huh. "

"I prefer radio myself."

 "Did that lady say she would be back?"

Chortles. Some look around. A large room with one door. An exit. Three blank walls.

"Did that lady say she would be back?"

Still we sit.

  

🔚

From the night dawning into 19-Oct-2016. 

Traveling Mien

He wasn't sad or angry, just resigned. It was late in his season and prospects were dim. He was beaten. It was a nefarious plot they had in mind. All of them were better oriented for jail than I was. I listened, though, from the next booth. His face was red but from weather not drink. He slid to lay in the booth.

 

There is a series of bays, inlets, lakes, and they all look alike. I don't know where I am in the series of bends in the road. (This sensation has occurred before, but I don't know if it was a dream or real.)

 

On foot, I am confronted with a huge mass of apartment complexes, as far as I can see in either direction. I must trespass to continue my important journey, so I begin to climb.

 

Now on a bike, a sinister character overtakes me. Perhaps it's the trespassing. I worry about him stealing my new SE (just arrived that day in waketime). I am taken to an ancient very small room with clapboard and barnwood forming nooks and corners everywhere. He has a companion and they discuss me. (Waketime reference might be the two guys showing great unhurry in admitting me to the hospital, Ft Polk, LA, February 1965; "He's 104," said one eventually.) One says to the other, "Release him," so I slither through a small fissure in the wall and ceiling juncture.

 

The mission is a b-line hike through the jungle, clearing brush and even plane trees in our path. It's grueling. Objective is a straight path from one village to another quite distant. We grind each day, and tomorrow will look just like today.

 

Son Casey will build something up on the east meadow, he tells us. He and his crew begin. We notice that as well as grading the field, they have ground up our driveway  and taken out our fence and from the gate all along the drive. Hey, what gives? We cannot even keep a dog now!

 

He says nothing.

 

 

African Dreams

I am thinking of those class soaps on BBC and PBS wherein the maid or butler or indeed anyone in the manse will open any door to reveal who is there without any thought this may not be a wise move. I open the door. 

There is out on a porch an African tribe of some sort in full regalia. They are seated in a line, some seven of them, with assorted children. They are very black and one then another of the men raise their chins and moan some sort of chant with closed eyes to the effect, in my interpretation, that they are in quite a lowly state and I have personally either brought about the disaster or failed in my responsibility to provide a remedy. 

"I have the Red Cross here," I suggest. One of the dark yodelers scoffs in another harmonic wail, which I am becoming quite adept at translating. 

I close the door and retreat to the interior. As it happens, I do have the Red Cross in attendance; my Welcome Wagon hostess has brought goodies to ease my transition into the neighborhood. (I am annoyed she brought tea instead of coffee.)  As I have learned she works at Red Cross, I tell her of my visitors, expecting to be scolded for imposing on her day off. 

"No rest for the weary," she sighs. Stands and moves toward the front door. 

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Dreaming Uphill

I notice as I approach the summit of our hike that you are no longer with me. I turn around and head back down. First I'm slow and then hurried and then frenzied as I don't find you. 

You exit a building at the bottom of the down road. It's an old second hand establishment about where Rocky's cooks live in real time. 

You are carrying a set  of golf clubs, not in a bag, just an assortment. You say, "I told you I would get these."

"Reading is learning is knowing is read,  Everything else is something was said."

Burnt Offering

"History, which interprets the past to understand the present and confront the future, is the least rewarding discipline for a dying species"

The Children of Men by James, P.D.

_____

My friends Maren and Jim are opening a restaurant. In a manner of natural progression they are giving up their duties as upper-level medical researchers in prestigious eastern environs in order to cook fish, draw draught, and greet ordinates. Bully for them.

I am bringing a gift as contribution to their new enterprise, a fireplace. It's a U-shaped brick construction like you see under terra cotta mantels in pretender housing developments. Just the thing.

I carry it up the open lane, each arm grasping a wing which fits along my either hip. I am not aware of the weight, which is just as well, as dreams would not be possible were physics in charge.

When I arrive at the site, Jim walks out into the porch. He is lost in thought, but aware I am there. He says, "They were supposed to call. They haven't."

I understand this to mean the relatives, who have offered to contribute the storefront for the establishment, have not yet given final permission. Jim returns inside.

I stand in front of the place, holding the fireplace. Apparently Jim did not notice it. Maybe lots of friends have donated fireplaces, so another does not merit remark, no more than another lily at a funeral.

I stand there.

Finally, I set down the fireplace in the yard. They are much too busy for this particular item. Plenty of time to set it up for them later, among all the others, after the relatives have called.

I start on down the lane towards home. Hear crackling. Smell woodsmoke. Turn.

Flames shoot from the fireplace out in the yard of the proto-restaurant. No one notices, because there is no one around, and, besides, what's to wonder about a fire in a fireplace?

The yard is mostly dirt and, for fifty feet or more in any direction around the fireplace, mine are the only footprints, leading right up to my boots.

Human nature has evolved the defense against utter confusion of regarding any lack of an answer a nullification of the question. Hope the relatives call, is my last thought on the business of the restaurant.

_____

Hello, friends. We're I to interpret this dream, I would fail, but I was interested that you both entered by name, and the odd gift might be entry into grief from outside. Maybe it relates not to Bucky, but to the old Bob Newhart bit about Madison Avenue creating an Abe Lincoln where none existed. Agent on the phone: "No, Abe, you were a rail splitter THEN a lawyer. It doesn't make any sense the other way. You wouldn't give up your jaw practice to split rails, now, would you?"

Best from
Tim

And look at the Sig from my Amazon phone:

Sent from my Fire

A Magical Vertical High-Rise Photo

I thought maybe you would like . https://www.amazon.com/gp/photos/?sid=fb216cc66ad4778f086ec60fb38a1aae501e1a00-1c1d0e74-16fb-3820-a814-0f8eb6248c03&did=9a02542a9c869794369b4a65ce0de8f63948dfd3

Ghost of a Dove

Sent from my Fire

Fwd: Positively 4th St: When I Was 21 ...

___
Timocracy, an ancient alternative to Democracy.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Timothy Bowden" <timocrates@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 27, 2007 at 2:51 PM -0800
Subject: Positively 4th St: When I Was 21 ...
To: <editor@ntxe-news.com>

When demonstrations on campus were brand new, someone thought of the technique of occupying buildings, and away they all did go. Let's take over the dean's office!

Only, the dean's office was locked. Much milling around ensued. What to do? A "leader" of the rebels sought to lead by speaking, and to be seen as well as heard he mounted a trashcan ... or meant to. While he was struggling to climb onto his improv podium, someone in back of the crowd yelled, "Let's take over the library!" Yeah, the library would be open. And off they all went.

The leader abandoned his trashcan, ran to catch the crowd, then to join those at the head of the procession. At which time he clasped arms with the front rank, and began chanting a revolutionary slogan.

That's how leadership is. That's how it goes. It is patent infringement; mass impulse sold as product back to the booboisie from which it was ripped off in the first place.


There is something else I learned about influence. It defies the laws of physics, in that the reaction is often greater than the force that brought it.

I learned about the dichotomy of force from the great grocery writer M F K Fisher, who apparently invented writing about the kitchen back when most memoirs featured war, politics or love. Once she had kicked off the show, every other scribbler on comestibles must come down on one side of the question or the other. They must try and write like M F K Fisher, or try not to. That's the nature of influence, which can spin off in either direction, like the proverbial matched particle pair.

A banner year was 1964; "filled with those events which alter and illuminate our time," portending grave eruptions to my state of denial.

Can't Buy Me Love. Baby Love. She Loves You. Fuel is thirty cents a gallon, and haircuts are clear up to fifty cents a shot. A leap year. A 9.2 quake hit Alaska, destroying Anchorage. LBJ declares a War on Poverty. There are plans announced to build a World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. The Beatles arrive on our shores for the first time. Somebody named Cassius Clay whups a Sonny Liston to become champeen of the whole world. Kitty Genovese, 28, is stabbed to death in queens as 38 neighbors refuse to respond to her cries, even to the extent of picking up a phone. Jack Ruby is found guilty in Dallas and, due to the jury's repugnance for the west coast grandstanding defense attorney Belli, draws a death sentence in place of what even the prosecutor figured would be five years for "murder without malice." (This is an example of the theme from the Camus novel "The Stranger.") Jeopardy premieres, with Art Fleming as host. General MacArthur dies at Walter Reid. The first Rolling Stones album premieres, and so does the Ford Mustang. In the Texas primary, Barry Goldwater scores over 75% of the Republican vote. The first marches against the Vietnam war were staged by hundreds in New York and San Francisco. Martial law declared in Seoul after a riot of 10,000 students overwhelms police. Nelson Mandela and 7 others are sentenced to life in South Africa. (Our unfortunately current veep creep voted as a Congressman in 1986 against a congressional resolution calling for the release of Mandela.) The bodies of three civil rights workers are found in Philadelphia, Mississippi, which thus became the logical site for Reagan's 1980 campaign kick-off. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is signed, along with the entire south over to the Republicans, an inevitable result of which LBJ was well aware. (Republicans in our community thus owe an unpaid debt to Civil Rights.) US casualties in Vietnam are up to 1,387, and Goldwater says at the Republican National Convention that "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." So 5,000 more troops are committed, bringing the total to 21,000. Race riots in Harlem. The final Looney Toons is released and the Warner Bros Cartoon Division is shut down. Two US destroyers are not attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin, but the resolution granting extreme war powers to LBJ passes anyway. The last executions in the United Kingdom are carried out. The Warren Commission Report issues forth and a massive cottage industry in Conspiracy Theory is born. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement breaks out. Dr Martin Luther King Jr is awarded the Nobel. Khrushchev is deposed. China joins the Atom Bomb fraternity. LBJ announces the Great Society, and goes on to an extreme smackdown of Goldwater in the general election with over 60% of the vote. Cosmic Microwave Background discovered, leading to the Big Bang theory.

And I turned twenty one, influenced by none of the foregoing, excepting perhaps Looney Toons, Cassius Clay, and Jeopardy. My interest was in the shine on that emerald Golden Commando Sport Fury, and how quick it was, and will Miss Donna Delight come ride in my car? I was single and not bothered by the military, then neither was so, then either was again. I learned to drink around that year, but I never smoked tobacco nor voted Republican ever. I killed some animals in that era, but like Anselmo at the bridge at the end of For Whom the Bell Tolls, I hope to live ever after in such a way it doesn't matter. (This is not a working formula. Anselmo did not even survive the bridge.)

Influence is almost always negative. You can see this by reading the letters to the editor in most any newspaper. If you lived in a utopia with 90% of your environment optimum or better, as we do, then you would see an exaggerated expression of woe and anger at that missing 10%. It is endemic in those who have the least to complain about to spend inordinately more time whining to make up for it. There is more wailing and gnashing of teeth over trivia in Central California than legitimate crying in the streets of Mogadishu.

We lost Kurt Vonnegut this year. He described  Bokononism, which includes the wrang-wrang , or "person who steers people away from a line of speculation by reducing that line, with the example of the wrang-wrang's own life, to an absurdity." Think about that. It is the main force driving public discourse.

The best pal Stalin had was Joe McCarthy, the blustery bully buffoon who made a circus out of anti-communism. Rap chatters are popular with preteen girls who only want to shock and dismay parents. Many more crazed jihadists were called to arms by the Crawford Cretin than by any number of homicidal psychos in caves.

And today's campaign triggers are reduced to simple terms with the same negative connotations. For old-timey racism, we have Immigration. There is for hatred of gays and atheism, Family Values. For misogny and fear of a powerful woman, it's Hillary. Just try and imagine a campaign moment which does not attempt to invoke fear and loathing. Keep that factor in mind while watching your biased "news" shows. All politicos only attempt to mimic leadership by climbing atop trashcans.

That's what I've learned since 1964. We are driven by a negatively-charged magnet. Whereas Bokonon asks us to sing along with him.

Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen-
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice-
So many different people
In the same device.

---

References are from Wikipedia, Kurt Vonnegut, Walter Cronkite, and Bokonon.

Positively 4th St is a realm bounded by time (earliest days through the sixties) and distance (the range of Highway 82 as it was then, roaming through our village east to west). If you were located within 20 miles or years of the 4th St Era, then you are part of the program.


Tim Bowden
wishes you an even better year in 2008!