Raymond Gaynor's Blog, page 51
December 2, 2020
WAR OF THE WORLDS: PRODUCT VERSES SERVICE
THERE are many ways to characterize the 21st Century, but in my book, the biggest and most important attribute is the world-wide swing away from human service to product sales, mainly due to the insertion of “business” into virtually every human (and non-human) endeavor. In the “old” style, success was measured by the positive impact one had on humanity. In the new, “business-everywhere” style, success is measured by the amount of money acquired, or in the strictest sense, the creation of a consistently-increasing-profit product. Human services don’t fit well in a business model or the business world, and have to be subtly reoriented from service to product sales. The cost is a loss of empathy, respect and commitment to humanity, and the adoption of a new, inhuman standard: money, gold, increasing profit, geld.
This attitude shift has become, in my opinion, blatantly apparent in the areas of publicity and marketing (in business-speak, advertising), all essential arms of a successful modern business. I don’t know about you, but these days, if I’m sent a postcard, letter, robocall, advert, email or text message about a “better watch,” I know no one would spend the energy, time and money required to advertise it as such if it actually were a better watch. If it were, it would sell itself through word of mouth. More than likely it’s simply a cheaper and most probably an inferior watch. It’s all about the product. A thing that really isn’t, in the end, going to make my life more meaningful. I’ve experienced this, as both an avid reader and an author, finding it harder and harder to get untainted information about new books and get honest information out about my own new books. People seem increasingly hardened to any kind of new information — not inappropriate, given the amount and sophistication of “fake news” nowadays.
Having said that, I invite you take a peek at my newly released novel of the times (use Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature to see for yourself if I’m selling a product, or offering a service). What service, you might ask? The opportunity of looking into a science-based, quite plausible future, and seeing if what is reflected in the “future mirror” is how you think the future world should be. No dystopian or utopian science fantasies, just a solid look into a future towards which I believe we are heading from the edge of madness.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
This attitude shift has become, in my opinion, blatantly apparent in the areas of publicity and marketing (in business-speak, advertising), all essential arms of a successful modern business. I don’t know about you, but these days, if I’m sent a postcard, letter, robocall, advert, email or text message about a “better watch,” I know no one would spend the energy, time and money required to advertise it as such if it actually were a better watch. If it were, it would sell itself through word of mouth. More than likely it’s simply a cheaper and most probably an inferior watch. It’s all about the product. A thing that really isn’t, in the end, going to make my life more meaningful. I’ve experienced this, as both an avid reader and an author, finding it harder and harder to get untainted information about new books and get honest information out about my own new books. People seem increasingly hardened to any kind of new information — not inappropriate, given the amount and sophistication of “fake news” nowadays.
Having said that, I invite you take a peek at my newly released novel of the times (use Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature to see for yourself if I’m selling a product, or offering a service). What service, you might ask? The opportunity of looking into a science-based, quite plausible future, and seeing if what is reflected in the “future mirror” is how you think the future world should be. No dystopian or utopian science fantasies, just a solid look into a future towards which I believe we are heading from the edge of madness.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
December 1, 2020
THE UNIVERSE AT THE END OF THE RESTAURANT
SOME time ago, I was asked where I wrote THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor. Notwithstanding the fact that I wrote it over several weeks (several months if you include the technical research; several years if you include defining the ambiance; several decades if you include personal experience), I penned some of it in a restaurant here San Francisco that, at the time, was reminding me of my days at University of California Berkeley. It’s the same restaurant in which I sketched out the sequel, which I tentatively called “Shadow.” I recall staring distantly beyond the far wall at what seemed to me at the time a holographic vision of the universe. Ergo, the universe at the end of the restaurant, in deference to a longtime favorite, completely irreverent, sci-fu author, Mr. Douglas Adams. Okay, call he a science fantasy author if you prefer, but I think we’ll find a number of his little less outlandish ideations waiting for us to catch up with them in the future. Sci-Fu — Science-based futuring — never got stretched so long, wide, deep and timely as in his HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY series.
I was sorely tempted to jump into the illusion of money, that all too human “game” that rewards the few at the expense of the many, and mentally travel across the restaurant to my misty galaxy spinning there, waiting for me. Telling me what to write, and to write it as fast as possible due to the likely effect of time dilation when traveling so fast across such distances. I wrote. Scribbled, really, every idea as it zipped through my head and passed, leaving behind a stack of index cards with writing on them resembling that of a stenographer attempting to record several persons “speaking in tongues.”
My work was rewarded later, when, trying to make head or tails of the indecipherable index cards, I discovered their importance wasn’t in what it was I had been trying to record, but in the exquisite challenge they presented, lying there before me, simply begging to be given meaning. Any meaning. And, I did exactly that. The results, reflected later in (a) “ah-ha” moments doing the technical research; (b) the unfolding of a plausible future embedded within a world in constant conflict; and (c) detailed using from personal experience are what you see in THE EDGE OF MADNESS.
I invite you to snuggle into an easy chair by a fireplace, open the book to any random page and begin your journey along the edge of madness to the universe at the end of the restaurant.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
I was sorely tempted to jump into the illusion of money, that all too human “game” that rewards the few at the expense of the many, and mentally travel across the restaurant to my misty galaxy spinning there, waiting for me. Telling me what to write, and to write it as fast as possible due to the likely effect of time dilation when traveling so fast across such distances. I wrote. Scribbled, really, every idea as it zipped through my head and passed, leaving behind a stack of index cards with writing on them resembling that of a stenographer attempting to record several persons “speaking in tongues.”
My work was rewarded later, when, trying to make head or tails of the indecipherable index cards, I discovered their importance wasn’t in what it was I had been trying to record, but in the exquisite challenge they presented, lying there before me, simply begging to be given meaning. Any meaning. And, I did exactly that. The results, reflected later in (a) “ah-ha” moments doing the technical research; (b) the unfolding of a plausible future embedded within a world in constant conflict; and (c) detailed using from personal experience are what you see in THE EDGE OF MADNESS.
I invite you to snuggle into an easy chair by a fireplace, open the book to any random page and begin your journey along the edge of madness to the universe at the end of the restaurant.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
November 30, 2020
POINT-OF-VIEW
WHEN I began writing THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I wanted to start off this mixed relationship, love-romance, erotic, mixed LGBTQ, SciFu genre work about a challenging and dangerous future place for three young firebrands to live, with something unique. I chose a Point-of-View (POV) shift. Instead of writing about the birth of the main character from a third party or the mother’s POV, I wrote the first few chapters about his birth entirely from the character’s POV. For me, it proved one of my most interesting writes yet. What does a baby experience in utero, during and immediately after birth? What is the happening from his or her unique POV, especially given his or her limited experience in “our” world?
To this unique POV, I added two additional tidbits to make it even more interesting: First, the character is quite conscious well before birth, and capable of experiencing his in utero world and learning from that experience. While that may sound outrageous to some, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that some are able to access newborn, birthing and even pre-natal memories of sensations, though the interpretation of those sensations, given the limited experience of the fetus, may be quite unusual.
Second, my principal character is a smell savant. That is, he has a heightened sense and memory of smell. I chose this sense because of all the senses, smell is supposedly the most primitive, and thereby, by my reckoning, the most powerful. Medical publications relate that smell is fewer neurons from the brain than any other sense, so I take that as support for my statement, and, though I’ve never met nor am I particularly a smell savant, I thoroughly enjoyed exploring this possibility.
I don’t find mono-genre books of much interest (though they are often simpler to follow); instead, I prefer authoring multi-genre works, which those who’ve read TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, and/or QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016) by Raymond Gaynor and A. G. Hayes will attest. One thing that makes my works more plausible, I think, is that I present a world that is complex (sometimes puzzlingly so), wet, dirty, frothing with emotion, and replete with action sometimes driven consciously but more often driven almost entirely by the subconscious.
I invite you to step out of your comfort zone and tiptoe to the edge of madness, a madness that may actually be more real than fiction and provide a glimpse into a neither dystopian nor utopian science-based future.
The Edge of Madness
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
Quantum Death
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
To this unique POV, I added two additional tidbits to make it even more interesting: First, the character is quite conscious well before birth, and capable of experiencing his in utero world and learning from that experience. While that may sound outrageous to some, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that some are able to access newborn, birthing and even pre-natal memories of sensations, though the interpretation of those sensations, given the limited experience of the fetus, may be quite unusual.
Second, my principal character is a smell savant. That is, he has a heightened sense and memory of smell. I chose this sense because of all the senses, smell is supposedly the most primitive, and thereby, by my reckoning, the most powerful. Medical publications relate that smell is fewer neurons from the brain than any other sense, so I take that as support for my statement, and, though I’ve never met nor am I particularly a smell savant, I thoroughly enjoyed exploring this possibility.
I don’t find mono-genre books of much interest (though they are often simpler to follow); instead, I prefer authoring multi-genre works, which those who’ve read TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, and/or QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016) by Raymond Gaynor and A. G. Hayes will attest. One thing that makes my works more plausible, I think, is that I present a world that is complex (sometimes puzzlingly so), wet, dirty, frothing with emotion, and replete with action sometimes driven consciously but more often driven almost entirely by the subconscious.
I invite you to step out of your comfort zone and tiptoe to the edge of madness, a madness that may actually be more real than fiction and provide a glimpse into a neither dystopian nor utopian science-based future.
The Edge of Madness
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
Quantum Death
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
November 29, 2020
FLASH-BANG!
FLASH-BANG!
MOST years of my life I recall with sort of smoothly blended aura handing about the memories. Very warm and fuzzy. 2020 — the Year of the Plague — I recall like a series of flash-bangs, each followed by some days of being stunned. Whether COVID-19; the sudden man-love between the USA president and an increasingly despicable passel of dictators; the worldwide economic crisis; the too-numerable-to-count outright lies, deceits and the sudden emergence of propaganda; the failing of our infrastructures, one after another; the need to return to civil “rioting;” the need to distance and mask in order to simply stay alive. Flash! Bang!
During the mess of 2008, when asked what I though was going on, I said to a colleague that I thought the world was falling into a new Dark Age, and I wrote about it in TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese. A man-love adventure, touching on the LGBTQ, it nonetheless presented readers with a first plausible, science-based futuring. I didn’t recognize it at the time as an entirely new genre — which it is — quite distinct from science fiction and fantasy. However, with THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor focused on a plausible, science-based futuring surrounding recovery from a national meltdown, I did recognize the new genre, and have felt proud to have introduced it.
Set in the near future, THE EDGE OF MADNESS explores the evolving relationships between three friends, all of whom know little to nothing about their past and even less about their futures. What they do know is that each is unusually gifted: Rob, an uber-conscious male with an enhanced sense of smell; Frann, an ostentatious gay male with an Olympian physique; and Andry, a brilliant moon-child and professional acronymeur with a taste for Wicca…and her two male friends.
From the publisher at https://checkout.square.site/buy/4MI5... with free shipping within the USA
From any of the four Savant national Bookstores at https://savant-bookstore-honolulu.squ... at a 10% complimentary discount and free shipping within the USA
From Amazon.com in printed or eBook format at https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
From The Book Depository with free shipping internationally at https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Ed...
THE EDGE OF MADNESS is an exploration of a plausible, possible future, where every hedonistic pleasure is available — if one can afford it. People work in order to purchase the newest technologies promising ultimate pleasure. But as in Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD and George Orwell’s 1984, citizens are watched carefully by emotionless “Enforcers” who show up anytime unusual events occur.
Like Huxley and Orwell’s works, THE EDGE OF MADNESS has something to say about almost everything present and future. But it’s also a love triangle and a coming-of-age story of three youths in a future where anything and everything goes. The ultimate question for them is: Can true love or sanity be found in such a world?
This story will make some excited about what the future may hold while others may recoil at a world of such extremes. Either way, it’s an engaging ride in a world where, for example, teachers and students appear holographically together in instructional classrooms while remaining safely at home, begging the question of what, if anything, in this future world is “real.” Put on your CandyShades, breathe in a little ContraSpray and settle back for a T-rip like never before.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...
MOST years of my life I recall with sort of smoothly blended aura handing about the memories. Very warm and fuzzy. 2020 — the Year of the Plague — I recall like a series of flash-bangs, each followed by some days of being stunned. Whether COVID-19; the sudden man-love between the USA president and an increasingly despicable passel of dictators; the worldwide economic crisis; the too-numerable-to-count outright lies, deceits and the sudden emergence of propaganda; the failing of our infrastructures, one after another; the need to return to civil “rioting;” the need to distance and mask in order to simply stay alive. Flash! Bang!
During the mess of 2008, when asked what I though was going on, I said to a colleague that I thought the world was falling into a new Dark Age, and I wrote about it in TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese. A man-love adventure, touching on the LGBTQ, it nonetheless presented readers with a first plausible, science-based futuring. I didn’t recognize it at the time as an entirely new genre — which it is — quite distinct from science fiction and fantasy. However, with THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor focused on a plausible, science-based futuring surrounding recovery from a national meltdown, I did recognize the new genre, and have felt proud to have introduced it.
Set in the near future, THE EDGE OF MADNESS explores the evolving relationships between three friends, all of whom know little to nothing about their past and even less about their futures. What they do know is that each is unusually gifted: Rob, an uber-conscious male with an enhanced sense of smell; Frann, an ostentatious gay male with an Olympian physique; and Andry, a brilliant moon-child and professional acronymeur with a taste for Wicca…and her two male friends.
From the publisher at https://checkout.square.site/buy/4MI5... with free shipping within the USA
From any of the four Savant national Bookstores at https://savant-bookstore-honolulu.squ... at a 10% complimentary discount and free shipping within the USA
From Amazon.com in printed or eBook format at https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
From The Book Depository with free shipping internationally at https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Ed...
THE EDGE OF MADNESS is an exploration of a plausible, possible future, where every hedonistic pleasure is available — if one can afford it. People work in order to purchase the newest technologies promising ultimate pleasure. But as in Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD and George Orwell’s 1984, citizens are watched carefully by emotionless “Enforcers” who show up anytime unusual events occur.
Like Huxley and Orwell’s works, THE EDGE OF MADNESS has something to say about almost everything present and future. But it’s also a love triangle and a coming-of-age story of three youths in a future where anything and everything goes. The ultimate question for them is: Can true love or sanity be found in such a world?
This story will make some excited about what the future may hold while others may recoil at a world of such extremes. Either way, it’s an engaging ride in a world where, for example, teachers and students appear holographically together in instructional classrooms while remaining safely at home, begging the question of what, if anything, in this future world is “real.” Put on your CandyShades, breathe in a little ContraSpray and settle back for a T-rip like never before.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...
November 28, 2020
WHAT WOULD THE WORLD BE WITHOUT DINOSAURS?
YOU know, dinosaurs. Modern Velociraptors. Birds. What would a morning or evening be without their cheery chirping? Of course, that depends on having non-poisoned food (seeds, worms and insects), lots of bird condos (trees) to choose from and within which rest and visit neighbors, and “nature paths” where humans, plants and birds can, if not interact directly, at least enjoy each other’s company. Sound impossible or just too idyllic?
Neither, I assure, in a quite plausible future. Grab a copy of Raymond Gaynor’s THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020), turn to page 66, and be sure to “Keep ON the Grass” while you safely renew your relationship with an alien lifeform much older (and can it be said, wiser?) than humans.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
Available NOW in printed and/or eBook format from Amazon and affiliated regional/national Amazon sites. Also available from The Book Depository including quick, free shipping WORLDWIDE. Now there’s no excuse to not live in the future.
Neither, I assure, in a quite plausible future. Grab a copy of Raymond Gaynor’s THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020), turn to page 66, and be sure to “Keep ON the Grass” while you safely renew your relationship with an alien lifeform much older (and can it be said, wiser?) than humans.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
Available NOW in printed and/or eBook format from Amazon and affiliated regional/national Amazon sites. Also available from The Book Depository including quick, free shipping WORLDWIDE. Now there’s no excuse to not live in the future.
November 26, 2020
A THANKSGIVING BLACK FRIDAY
TODAY is Thanksgiving, and I wish you and yours a pleasant holiday. It’s odd, or at least paradoxical to me at least, to be celebrating family during a Black Friday (Day, Week, Month or Year, depending on your political or COVID perspective). The Year of the Plague makes for this year’s Thanksgiving adage, “Wishing you a death-free Thanksgiving” a chilling reminder of where our world is in our struggle with COVID-19.
But it’s not really about COVID or Trump. I’ve repeatedly posted my opinion that COVID-19 isn’t the “real” enemy. The scythe of the uncooperative and disbelieving, it isn’t COVID-19 per se that’s creating havoc. Instead of COVID-19, it might just as well have been any number of bacterial, viral or prion-based epidemics prophesied by health officials. No, it’s our outmoded infrastructure from the way we govern right down to how we live our individual lives that needs critical re-examination.
We’ve come to rely on the creation of increasingly dense concentrations of humans in order to satisfy an unrelenting greed, basing our “measure of success” on the accumulation of money.
I have long held that money — like power is an illusion. Money is a “game” invented by people to benefit a few “winners,” at the expense of the rest of humanity, the “losers.” Money isn’t proof of success. It simply bypasses everything that makes us human and of intrinsic value simply because we exist.
Are we, as one, capable of “growing up” and taking our place in the universe as humanity, or are we destined to remain stuck in our monitized sandbox, fighting over who can amass the most sand while we succumb, one by one, to the two Great Illusions and the henchmen, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? I’ll say it again: In my opinion, our “real” enemy isn’t COVID-19. It’s our own failing infrastructures, whether they be in politics, ethics, education, transportation, health care, business or religion.
Can we rise above our own destruction? I think so. That’s why I wrote THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor. It’s a science-based futuring (SCI-FU) novel providing readers a way to look at the present and a plausible future, neither dystopian or utopian, simply clearer, so we can see where we are today and where, claiming our own control of our lives and humanity, to direct our present efforts for a future that elevates all humankind, animals, plants…and our own living, breathing planet.
So, Happy Thanksgiving. Me,, I’m thankful for the opportunity of sharing THE EDGE OF MADNESS with you, and I hope you will be thankful for having read it!
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
But it’s not really about COVID or Trump. I’ve repeatedly posted my opinion that COVID-19 isn’t the “real” enemy. The scythe of the uncooperative and disbelieving, it isn’t COVID-19 per se that’s creating havoc. Instead of COVID-19, it might just as well have been any number of bacterial, viral or prion-based epidemics prophesied by health officials. No, it’s our outmoded infrastructure from the way we govern right down to how we live our individual lives that needs critical re-examination.
We’ve come to rely on the creation of increasingly dense concentrations of humans in order to satisfy an unrelenting greed, basing our “measure of success” on the accumulation of money.
I have long held that money — like power is an illusion. Money is a “game” invented by people to benefit a few “winners,” at the expense of the rest of humanity, the “losers.” Money isn’t proof of success. It simply bypasses everything that makes us human and of intrinsic value simply because we exist.
Are we, as one, capable of “growing up” and taking our place in the universe as humanity, or are we destined to remain stuck in our monitized sandbox, fighting over who can amass the most sand while we succumb, one by one, to the two Great Illusions and the henchmen, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? I’ll say it again: In my opinion, our “real” enemy isn’t COVID-19. It’s our own failing infrastructures, whether they be in politics, ethics, education, transportation, health care, business or religion.
Can we rise above our own destruction? I think so. That’s why I wrote THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor. It’s a science-based futuring (SCI-FU) novel providing readers a way to look at the present and a plausible future, neither dystopian or utopian, simply clearer, so we can see where we are today and where, claiming our own control of our lives and humanity, to direct our present efforts for a future that elevates all humankind, animals, plants…and our own living, breathing planet.
So, Happy Thanksgiving. Me,, I’m thankful for the opportunity of sharing THE EDGE OF MADNESS with you, and I hope you will be thankful for having read it!
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
November 25, 2020
AN IDLE/IDYL THREAT
SOMETHING’S changed. Admit it. I can sense it in the air. It’s subtle, but not so subtle. Like not feeling the obsessive need to read the news every day I’ve felt for over a year. No more need to check CNN, then NPR, BBC and NHK to make certain I really know what’s going on in America. Whew! It’s like idling back a fine tuned race car to just take it out, top down, for a pleasant ride.
Are things getting back to “normal,” then? While I relish the feeling of relief, I don’t think one can ever reclaim innocence, in this case, political innocence. America came unimaginably close to a TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese. Now things feel better, despite the desperation and death of a plague ravaging all about. In fact, I feel our nation skirting THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor even more now.
These are unprecedented times, certainly for me. Nations come and go, and while “other” nations may do so, it is always as unthinkable that one’s own nation might “go,” as it is that all humans must face their own mortality and death. Unthinkable, but not implausible. These days, we’ve been given a shot across the bow — COVID-19 — warning us to re-examine and fix our myriad national infrastructures for the future, and a moment back in the warm sunshine of yesteryear — our perceived change in national attitude and politics, but what they together amount to is a an idle/idyl threat. A warning that all is not necessarily what it appears. It is, however, a time for the next generation to step up to the plate and take leadership and responsibility for nothing less than an entirely new generation, an event that invariable happens every decade but is always unprecedented.
https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Ed...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
Are things getting back to “normal,” then? While I relish the feeling of relief, I don’t think one can ever reclaim innocence, in this case, political innocence. America came unimaginably close to a TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese. Now things feel better, despite the desperation and death of a plague ravaging all about. In fact, I feel our nation skirting THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor even more now.
These are unprecedented times, certainly for me. Nations come and go, and while “other” nations may do so, it is always as unthinkable that one’s own nation might “go,” as it is that all humans must face their own mortality and death. Unthinkable, but not implausible. These days, we’ve been given a shot across the bow — COVID-19 — warning us to re-examine and fix our myriad national infrastructures for the future, and a moment back in the warm sunshine of yesteryear — our perceived change in national attitude and politics, but what they together amount to is a an idle/idyl threat. A warning that all is not necessarily what it appears. It is, however, a time for the next generation to step up to the plate and take leadership and responsibility for nothing less than an entirely new generation, an event that invariable happens every decade but is always unprecedented.
https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Ed...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
November 24, 2020
HOTDOG!
BY NOW you’re probably familiar with my newly released LGBT, Sci-Fu relationship novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor. And you’re probably aware that it’s ON PRE-HOLIDAY SALE through 26 November 2020 (25% off printed book with free shipping within USA at any of the four online Savant Bookstores using HOLIDAYSALE coupon code at checkout; 38% off Amazon Kindle ebook – no coupon code necessary). Savant Bookstores include Savant Bookstore Atlantic, Savant Bookstore Midwest, Savant Bookstore Pacific and Savant Bookstore Honolulu.
But did you know that THE EDGE OF MADNESS is also a cookbook? Well, at least it projects, among other things, some future foods like replacing hot brewed azuki for coffee. But today, four months after its release, I’ve discovered something that should have been in the book: Hotdogs made with fish cake (“fish sausage”) instead of beef wieners. I don’t know about you, but while I love hotdogs, I’ve never really liked the nitrated beef wieners. So I can wholeheartedly recommend these NewAmerican hotdogs, which have a milder, comfort-food taste and after-feeling, along with a previously published hot brewed azuki drink. No matter how challenging, the future, it always holds something entirely new and enjoyable.
The Edge of Madness
But did you know that THE EDGE OF MADNESS is also a cookbook? Well, at least it projects, among other things, some future foods like replacing hot brewed azuki for coffee. But today, four months after its release, I’ve discovered something that should have been in the book: Hotdogs made with fish cake (“fish sausage”) instead of beef wieners. I don’t know about you, but while I love hotdogs, I’ve never really liked the nitrated beef wieners. So I can wholeheartedly recommend these NewAmerican hotdogs, which have a milder, comfort-food taste and after-feeling, along with a previously published hot brewed azuki drink. No matter how challenging, the future, it always holds something entirely new and enjoyable.
The Edge of Madness
November 22, 2020
WHO DOMESTICATED WHO?
EVERYONE knows that humans, clever beasts that we are, domesticated plants and animals sometime around 4000 to 2000 BC. Ergo, bread, wine, olive oil, beef, chicken and horses. But what, given our very short lifespan and perspective, if it was the other way around? Should plants take credit for domesticating animals and even -- OMG -- humans? It may seem like pure science fiction, but it's actually another example of science-based futuring, the first example being Raymond Gaynor's newly released SCI-FU novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020).
Plants have long held the ability to interfere with fertility and birth (https://www.targethealth.com/post/anc...) and plant-based concoctions, usually water-based, contain a wide variety of interesting -- some as yet still uncharacterized -- organic chemicals that have activity when consumed or breathed in water droplets. Plant transpiration water, once thought to be "pure" water, actually, like fine wines, contains bio-active chemicals that are unique to each plant ("phytopharmacology" see https://janik.yolasite.com/private-re...).
So, I ask you, is it so absurd to suggest that humans and animals developed alongside plants, which inhabited planet Earth millions of years prior, susceptible to organics inherent in their neighbors' water-soluable transpirates, in effect, plants controlling and thereby domesticating humans?
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
Plants have long held the ability to interfere with fertility and birth (https://www.targethealth.com/post/anc...) and plant-based concoctions, usually water-based, contain a wide variety of interesting -- some as yet still uncharacterized -- organic chemicals that have activity when consumed or breathed in water droplets. Plant transpiration water, once thought to be "pure" water, actually, like fine wines, contains bio-active chemicals that are unique to each plant ("phytopharmacology" see https://janik.yolasite.com/private-re...).
So, I ask you, is it so absurd to suggest that humans and animals developed alongside plants, which inhabited planet Earth millions of years prior, susceptible to organics inherent in their neighbors' water-soluable transpirates, in effect, plants controlling and thereby domesticating humans?
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
November 20, 2020
INVESTMENT VS. GAMBLING
I didn’t want to write this post, as I’ve commented on this topic several times before, but it keeps rearing its ugly head in our increasingly “monetized” business world. It’s mainly about mis-definition, the singular act at the very heart of conning. Let me explain.
In my world, an investment is a situation in which your principal is guaranteed. You don’t lose it or fear for losing it. What’s variable is the return on the investment. It might be zero or a sizable percentage. But the principal is never at risk.
Gambling, as you might guess from the above, is a situation in which the principal is not guaranteed. You can lose it, and at the least, are justified in fearing losing it, as in most gambling situations, “the house always wins” whenever necessary, to the detriment of the gambler. The return on initial principal is still variable. It might be zero or a sizable percentage. But always remember the Gambler’s (mirrored in the Fisherman’s) Creed: Exaggerate winnings and denigrate losses. This is the second act at the very heart of conning.
Finally, a gamble, when effectively constructed, usually affords the opportunity of a “random win,” making the effort highly addictive. As the adage goes, “Never give a sucker and even break,” the catchword being “even.” This is the third act at the very heart of conning.
Whether Washington Politics, Wall Street or the publishing industry (on which as an author I must rely), gambling is typically presented as a “sound investment,” meaning the con involves using the victim’s principal. A con can be made to look like it’s based on another’s principal in order to “slight-of-hand” shift attention away from the victim’s risk (typically called a “long” con – see Josh Holloway playing con man, James “Sawyer” Ford, in the “LOST,” a television series of deception on cons).
The bottom line of any investment is always (1) how the principal is guaranteed; and (2) linking the return on investment (ROI) to specific objectives, like, for instance, basing ROI on objective, verifiable sales. In the former case, I prefer establishing an escrow account, where every withdrawal is countered with a tangible, equal-valued asset placed in escrow. In the latter case, I make it a point to not believe anything I’m told, I just want to see the books and be able to verify the returns. It’s a lot of work, but that’s often the biggest difference between an investment and a gamble.
THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aigos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor deals with a world in recovery from one of greatest con’s in history, the “abdication” of a sitting President of the United States of America taking with him trillions of public dollars during an election transition. A cleverly executed con. Recovery’s not a pretty sight, but a telling one — a story of redefining business, trust, investment, relationships and national infrastructures.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
In my world, an investment is a situation in which your principal is guaranteed. You don’t lose it or fear for losing it. What’s variable is the return on the investment. It might be zero or a sizable percentage. But the principal is never at risk.
Gambling, as you might guess from the above, is a situation in which the principal is not guaranteed. You can lose it, and at the least, are justified in fearing losing it, as in most gambling situations, “the house always wins” whenever necessary, to the detriment of the gambler. The return on initial principal is still variable. It might be zero or a sizable percentage. But always remember the Gambler’s (mirrored in the Fisherman’s) Creed: Exaggerate winnings and denigrate losses. This is the second act at the very heart of conning.
Finally, a gamble, when effectively constructed, usually affords the opportunity of a “random win,” making the effort highly addictive. As the adage goes, “Never give a sucker and even break,” the catchword being “even.” This is the third act at the very heart of conning.
Whether Washington Politics, Wall Street or the publishing industry (on which as an author I must rely), gambling is typically presented as a “sound investment,” meaning the con involves using the victim’s principal. A con can be made to look like it’s based on another’s principal in order to “slight-of-hand” shift attention away from the victim’s risk (typically called a “long” con – see Josh Holloway playing con man, James “Sawyer” Ford, in the “LOST,” a television series of deception on cons).
The bottom line of any investment is always (1) how the principal is guaranteed; and (2) linking the return on investment (ROI) to specific objectives, like, for instance, basing ROI on objective, verifiable sales. In the former case, I prefer establishing an escrow account, where every withdrawal is countered with a tangible, equal-valued asset placed in escrow. In the latter case, I make it a point to not believe anything I’m told, I just want to see the books and be able to verify the returns. It’s a lot of work, but that’s often the biggest difference between an investment and a gamble.
THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aigos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor deals with a world in recovery from one of greatest con’s in history, the “abdication” of a sitting President of the United States of America taking with him trillions of public dollars during an election transition. A cleverly executed con. Recovery’s not a pretty sight, but a telling one — a story of redefining business, trust, investment, relationships and national infrastructures.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
