Dermott Hayes's Blog: Postcard from a Pigeon, page 9

PENCHANT

 

He couldn’t resist a person wearing a hat. He followed them, imagined himself speaking to them, opening doors, ordering food, buying them gifts, sharing jokes and telling secrets. Then he killed them, wore their hat. That’s how he got caught, the yellow bowler was too obvious. Obsession? He preferred penchant.

10 Exciting New Ways To Get Offended Which Didn’t Exist 10 Years Ago

Hilarious and insightful observations by Tara Sparling in tarasparlingwrites.com

Tara Sparling writes

1. You follow someone but they don’t follow you back.

Imagine this conversation 10 years ago:

“Like, I followed her, but she never followed me back. What’s up with that?”

The answer to that just one short decade ago would have been one or more of the following:

(a) “Oh my God, are you stalking somebody?”

(b) “I don’t get it. If you’re following someone, how the hell can they follow you?”

(c) “WTF are you talking about?”

And yet nowadays, not following someone back is considered very decent grounds for deepemotional injury.

We live in exciting times, my friends.

2. Someone you will never meet is wrong.

Once upon a time, the world was full of people who got things wrong, and we never knew about it. Now we feel it incumbent upon ourselves to take them out and shoot them. Metaphorically, of course. Because killing people is wrong…

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DISOBEY

Contrary was a word used to describe him. It hardly seems adequate considering his actions and the strength of his resolve. An old man, his former teacher, remarks with a smile how he was always thus. Now his body lies lifeless, Nazi officer shouting over him, ‘Obey, I said,  ‘not disobey.’

Picture credit: source unknown but the soldier on the right was identified as Horace Greasley, a British soldier with the distinct record of escaping from Nazi camps more than 200 times.

After demobilisation Greasley returned to Leicestershire, swearing that he would never take orders from anyone again.

Love Poem

Love POETRY is not familiar territory for me but we’ve all gone through the terror and awkward excitement of first love and the pursuit of love.

 

Where have you been

since when, first seen?

in a pub, drunk and befuddled.

on a pitch, wet, be – puddled,

who knows ’til now,

love’s confusing signals,

the sweaty lip,

the furrowed brow

the dread of each encounter?

There is no map,

or uncharted path,

In love’s rough seas

to point the way.

All who are in springtime life

know the chill of innocence ,

while those of Autumn

live in dread, scorched by

fate and experience.

In the comfort of a love’s embrace

we soothe, praise, salivate.

In another time and circumstance,

We cry, deny and denigrate,

but the solace is shallow,

the hour late,

Is it better to live and love,

Hate to love or

Love to hate?

I spoke her name,

remembering,

the wincing horror

of love’s sharp pain,

to measure in sweaty palms,

Irrational thought

and shallow breathing,

the challenge of acceptance,

the nightmare of rejection.

SYMPATHY

‘Sympathy? I’ll give you a thick ear first.’

‘C’mere to me, come out here and say that to me. I’ll batter you.’

‘Kylie, behave yourself or I’ll call Michael Jackson to babysit ye.’

Sometimes, what we hear is ‘local colour’, ‘character’ and ‘great sport.’

And sometimes, it’s just sad and depressing.

 

Nuts & Bolts

The Day the Earth Stood Still, the 1951 original, directed by Robert Wise, is one of my favourite all time science fiction films. Michael Rennie plays Klaatu, an alien sent to earth with a dire warning about its future. The people of Earth react to his visit with defensive aggression but marvel at Klaatu’s extraordinary health, considering he’s 75 years old. As the military put a guard on the alien’s spaceship and his silent robot companion, Gort, Klaatu tries to explain to a gathering of scientists the earth is on a path of self destruction. Then he explains Gort.

That has always been a key point for me about the film. Gort, he says, is a machine his planet built for the express purpose of curtailing their worst instincts like greed, hate and destructive jealousy: because what he, Gort, could do to them was just so terrible, it’s beyond consideration.

Mark O’Connell’s To Be a Machine reminded me of that film and particularly, Gort, an artificially intelligent robot programmed to control and prevent his maker’s worst impulses.

In the space of two years O’Connell set out on a voyage of discovery through the world of transhumanism, a philosophical conceit that covers a desire to become a machine, conquer death and shed the frail and inadequate shells we call bodies.

It’s an entertaining and informative read, part philosophical discourse, part travelogue and the rest an often hilarious encounter with people who, some might say, have too much time and money but who may, despite our sarcastic scepticism, be the precursors of a new age of the living or just the next stage in a program of preconditioning that began a long time ago.

Films like Robert Wise’s could be part of that last impulse, too. In the early 18th century the French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson built a mechanical duck that was capable of eating grain, metabolising it and then defecating. This shitting duck and deVaucanson’s mechanical flute player were characterised as ‘androids’, the first recorded use of that word. O’Connell’s superbly researched book is full of rich nuggets of knowledgeable nothingness like that.

For example, when Czech playwright Karel Capek brought his play, R.U.R. to the stage in Prague in 1921, he introduced the word ‘robot’ to the lexicon since the title’s initials stand for Rossum’s Universal Robots and the word, robot, itself derives from the Czech word, ‘robota’, meaning forced labour. Or how the word ‘cyborg’ first appeared in a scientific paper titled ‘Cyborgs in Space’ was published in  the Astronautics journal in 1960 in a discussion about how unsuitable the human body was for space exploration.

O’Connell meets many of the prime movers of the strands of transhumanism, from the advocates and promoters of artificial intelligence to those whose fervent wish is to become robots either by preserving their bodies in cryo-suspension or simply uploading their being to a computer. Then there are the cyborg enthusiasts, known as ‘grinders’, who can’t wait for science or fate and have taken to implanting machines in their own bodies. He spends the last three chapters of the book recounting his adventure, travelling  across the United States in a beat up bus turned in to a coffin with U.S. Transhumanist Presidential candidate, Zoltan Istvan, whose political intent was to promote a campaign to eliminate death.

Now, before you begin the instinctive and dismissive head and hand wagging these stories are prone to promote, please be aware that millions, maybe billions of dollars are already being spent in this and all these pursuits. Robots and androids are being built. There is research into longevity and the elimination of death and artificial intelligence is already a reality.

People use phones like they’re an extension of their bodies. How big a step will it be to put those machines inside you? And it isn’t just science fiction that has raised these issues. The subject of mortality has been a preoccupation since the first sentient human stood up and farted.

Are the ‘freedom’ and ‘free will’ we prize so highly just illusions and are we simply conditioned to behave towards someone else’s purpose while lingering under the notion that what we do, how we do it and why is by our own free choice? Anyone with a rudimentary awareness of global economics can see the lie in that delusion.

But To Be a Machine raises more questions than, I suspect, it ever set out to ask. Like if death is eliminated, how do you solve over-population? What about natural selection and regeneration? If we become mechanical beings, what happens to human emotions?

The transhumanists, according to O’Connell, believe these questions are manifestations of society and religion’s careful conditioning through the ages but I believe it wasn’t religion or conditioning but careful observation that drew people to the conclusion that life is a product of death.

Do people want to live forever? Six months before my father died at the age of 93, he told me he’d had enough. It was a theme he touched on with increasing regularity. He had a pacemaker and a smorgasbord of stents keeping his heart beating and his body functioning. His mind was lucid and alert.

If their world comes true and the substance of the mind – memory, reasoning intelligence  and experience – separates itself from the physical body, will those bodies then take on the function of municipal bike renting schemes, something the mind could borrow when it needs one?

There is a poem, Death is Not the End, which is popular at funerals but for some odd reason it is the words of Dylan Thomas in his poem, And Death Shall Have No Dominion that seems to best express, however unintentionally, the motivation of transhumanism although I’m equally sure they wouldn’t agree.

And death shall have no dominion.

Dead man naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.

Under the windings of the sea

They lying long shall not die windily;

Twisting on racks when sinews give way,

Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

Faith in their hands shall snap in two,

And the unicorn evils run them through;

Split all ends up they shan’t crack;

And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.

No more may gulls cry at their ears

Or waves break loud on the seashores;

Where blew a flower may a flower no more

Lift its head to the blows of the rain;

Though they be mad and dead as nails,

Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;

Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,

And death shall have no dominion.

Dylan Thomas

Mouth Watering Experience, Guaranteed.

I like to make a point of replying to comments on my blog posts. It’s only right when people have taken the trouble to read the post in the first place and then go to the trouble of gathering their thoughts and commenting.

So when Soni Chaudhari made the comment ‘soothing……………’ about a recent 50 word story of mine, Elevate , I was intrigued. Particularly since the punchline of the story relates to a conflict of interpretation and verbal confusion.

What could possibly be ‘soothing’ about it?

The mystery was soon revealed when I decided to investigate further and find out what sort of blog post Soni was operating. Was he or she a poet? Was he or she a literary genius who found a meaning in something I’d written I couldn’t grasp myself?

Alas, no, since Soni (if the featured image on the blog is to be believed) is a rather big breasted woman who likes to lie around on sandy beaches. The enterprising Soni, you see, runs ‘the Best Independent Escort Service in Chennai.’

And don’t take my word for it. Check out what Soni’s says about her services, in her own words…

“we have a tendency to all grasp the Punjabi women square measure familiar for his or her beauty and sexy curves. Soni Chaudhari  a hot and attractive woman from Chennai escorts. I do my management studies and part-time independent escorts in Chennai, and like to live life as her own terms. Man will fulfill there need by having me on bed within the four walls. I describe myself as a status Chennai escorts to supply a romantic friendly relationship. Folks decide me to pay for a romantic and mature time in their sleeping room. In spite of what the venue is, I’m able to bring the water from your mouth with my easy charm and pure womanly nature.

Ambition, determination and pure entrepreneurial zeal, apparently, are the driving forces behind Soni’s venture. It has the added advantage, she argues, of facilitating her life’s goals to become an independent young woman. And she’s the best, according to her.

I make the essential strides with full validity and love to pass on my organizations with full satisfaction to my associate. As I am an organization understudy my age is 21 years, partner depict me as I am provocative and engaging and extraordinary looks, why not abuse my incredible looks. I comprehended doing escorts is the best way to deal with come up in life as I am a run of the mill understudy and off center no sweetheart’s panga. Live of my own for the headway of my life. My best accessory is my clients, who use the upside of my charming body.

Well, it beats all the Viagra spam and distressed Nigerians who’ve forgotten their PIN number. Don’t take my word for it, read Elevate,

Her naked body gleams in the waning sunlight, the meandering shadows cloak her in an erotic memory, the tricky genie of light casts spells that highlight her sensuous curves.

‘This is a vision to elevate the soul,’ he says.

‘I agree,’  Lurg mutters, drooling.

‘No, ‘ says Bjorn, ‘ELEVATE, not SALIVATE.’

Building Walls

My hat’s off to French performance artist, JR and his mammoth installation of a colossal child looking over the Mexican ‘wall.’

FINITE

 

You know when people ask how much do they love someone? Does it make you wonder if love and affection are quantifiable? Is there a limit to how much you can love and does love have a finite point beyond which you will or cannot go? Certainly makes me wonder.

So, How’s The Book Coming Along?

Lucy, you’ve left me with no option, I had to reblog this. Excellent.

Secret Diary Of PorterGirl

I get asked this a lot. It’s one of the common questions directed at writers by well-meaning friends and acquaintances, along with ‘What do you write about?’ and ‘Have you sold enough copies to retire yet?’ I’m sure there are authors who love any opportunity to talk about their esteemed tomes, but I can assure you that I am not one of them. The only time discussing a manuscript is anywhere near bearable is before a single word has been written. That is a magical, care-free time when your book is surely going to be the greatest literary achievement in all history. As soon as words start appearing on the page, there are several clearly defined states as to ‘how the book is coming along’.

Mindless Optimism

Everything is great!

This state usually occurs quite early on, when a witty opening paragraph and masterful introduction of the main character has…

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