Marc L. Latham's Blog, page 43

Literary Nonsense Poems Inspired by Aussie Places

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. It’s that end of the week time of the week, so I think it’s about time for the second episode of your fave werewolf travel quests Australia to a comedy Wizard of Oz parody theme, Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps.

Mollymook Ulladaulla Literary Nonsense Inspiration

You might be thinking that I missed the ‘classic’ ‘epic’ out of the book description, but I have in fact saved it for this episode, because it is a literary nonsense poetry treat that those two words say they are delighted to describe.

Anyway, on with the story… There’s a place in Ulladulla called Mollymook…

Chapter 109.  Molly Mook’s Rowdy Rook in Ulladulla

We made good progress through the clear morning, and it didn’t seem long before Ulladulla came into view.

Barry beaked my attention

toward an approaching bird,

we slowed down as it neared.

When the bird arrived overhead,

it stretched out its wings and said:

‘Ahoy, sailors and swimmers,

you look in need of dinners.

I am Molly Mook,

landlady of the Rowdy Rook,

and I invite you to our snug nook.’

I said we were doing well,

but the offer sounded as swell

as the wave just approaching,

so how faraway is the Rook

as the crow flies, Molly Mook.

Live (The Black Crowes album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Molly laughed, before saying, ‘It is nine nautical miles as the crow flies, and I should know, for I am one; not a rook, I am a crow, and I fly as the crow flies.’

It didn’t sound a vast detour, and Molly seemed a chirpy character, so with the consent of the others I agreed:

‘We’d like to visit the Rowdy Rook,

so without a second look,

please lead us there chuck.’

The Rowdy Rook has a Familiar Look 

English: Warden Head Lighthouse at Ulladulla, New South Wales, Australia. View from clifftop walking track. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Molly said the harbour would be busy, so she led us to the beach above. From there, we walked down Ocean Street to the Rowdy Rook; I’d shapeshifted out of dolphin by then of course!

The Rowdy Rook was as welcoming as Molly had suggested. It was full of corvids of all types, and played some vids that made you think cor! The Black Crowes, Byrds and Them Crooked Vultures were particularly amazing.

We were ravenous by the time our mag pies arrived, and they fitted the bill; stylishly served in plates shaped like a spoonbill bill. That was some cook at the Rook.

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Notes

Ocean Street and Mollymook are in Ulladulla.

Corvids are groups of birds of the corvidae biological family; such as crows, ravens, jays and magpies.

Black Crowes, Byrds and Them Crooked Vultures are all real bands.

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Link for Amazon book and kindle.

Link for multiple Ereaders at Smashwords.

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Stockholm Photos Par Excellence, Poem of Literary Nonsense

Hi, it’s Baron Wolfman, head honcho of Greenygrey Creation in the absence of the legendary Andy Wolfhol. There’s been lots of Sweden talk on this here blog lately, so I thought I’d bring you some greenygrey Stockholm photos, not anything like those featured on our ol’ pal Marc Latham’s travel25years.wordpress.com blog (but there are some other greenygrey ones there too!).

Here we go,

Stockholm without snow,

looking greengrey,

on a clear day,

Sweden’s flag is yellowyblue,

and the sunnysky is too.

Stockholm Photos Par Excellence

Marc Latham has books available on Smashwords and Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/author/marclatham).

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Gaia Earth Plant Mirror Poem follows Religious History

Hi, it’s William Wolfsworth, poetry correspondent at the Greenygrey. Today we’ve got a new Marc Latham Folding Mirror poem that was mainly inspired by a news story about organisms found on a rock possibly being evidence of alien life that could have kick-started life on Earth.

Daniel hernandez la muerte de socrates (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It also plays on the fact that while humanity is no doubt a wise animal, it still doesn’t know exactly how it came to be any more than the Greenygreys… as Socrates famously observed 2500 years ago… about the wisest humanity knowing its limitations, not that Socrates knew the Greenygreys unfortunately.

Marc Latham’s Religious History

Marc Latham had no Jewishness in his upbringing, and he didn’t feel any particular spirituality when he visited the Middle-East in 1988; he felt more in the Nepalese Himalayas in 2009, when he was up in the highest mountains of the world, amongst particularly spectacular nature. But there was no great epiphany.

So while he believes that the Jewish people deserve a land in the Middle-East because they were there historically, he doesn’t think they were promised it by Abraham; any more than he thinks Islam has a right to form a global caliphate.

The Jewish people just seem to want a land in the Middle-East though, rather than trying to take over the world as Islam is, and threatening Britain and Europe with terrorism and hegemonic takeover. That is why Marc has more sympathy for Jews than Muslims in the current world order.

Marc did have a mildly Christian upbringing, but didn’t really believe in it from a young age. The Islam-inspired rise of monotheism in the last twenty years made Marc take more interest in religion, and now he supports Britain’s original ‘religion’: paganism. He doesn’t believe in a world-changing paganism, just a respect for what nature is left in an over-developed country and world.

Paganism is also polytheistic, and doesn’t seem as prejudiced, warmongering and repressive as the Middle-East monotheistic religions. While it is mostly the Islamophobia crew you hear from in the U.K. (as I’ve often heard Peter Hitchens say, a phobia is an irrational fear of something, so I think Islamophobia is a misnomer if ever there was one, and has been used to cover up a host of crimes in the U.K. and to propagate Islamism in the world) there is apparently a strong Jewish lobby in the U.S.A.

Jewish Lobby Can Talk Rubbish

We don’t usually hear much about them in the U.K. but recently there was a news story on Planet Rock that featured them criticising the Roger Waters (formerly of Pink Floyd) stage-show for featuring an inflatable pig and Star of David.

English: I took this photo from the 25th row, center, using a Kodak Playsport. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Waters explained the pig represented the ‘evil of errant government’ rather than any particular regime. Like many protest groups, I think the American Jewish Committee jumped in to something they didn’t understand, picked out one aspect of a bigger whole, took it out of context, and interpreted it as they wanted.

Marc Latham thought so too, and wrote this comment back on September 5th, prior to the recent Peter Herbert ‘Y’ word row:

Roger Waters Wall stageshow, Planet Rock News Sep 5th 2013

‘Agree with others that this is an example of protest groups justifying their existence and creating easy publicity… putting two and two together and coming up with five because they don’t know the context of the equation. I think I recently read Waters criticise Islamic fundamentalism, so he’s criticising all kinds of oppressive authoritarianism, and both sides in the Middle-East morass.’

Religion Should Be Personal, and By Choice

At the Greenygrey we think religion should be personal, and the Middle-East monotheists should allow Britain and Europe to continue developing in an intelligent informed scientific secular way to how it has been over the last century.

Alice in Chains seem to want this too, from their new single and video The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, which also first came to our attention on Planet Rock News. It criticises television evangelists for misleading; and profiting from their deception. It’s now available on YouTube, and is embedded here:

New Mirror Poem Compares Earth and Plants

Along the same lines as Marc Latham’s ant theory, his new mirror poem on fmpoetry.wordpress.com compares our planet to a plant, after reading that recently discovered possible space rock organisms might have fallen to Earth and started life on our planet.

English: Voyager Instruments Português: Voyager Instrumentos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thanks to scientific developments, we now know the universe is beyond belief massive, and that there are more stars in the known universe than there are grains of sand on our planet.

Voyager recently became the first human object to leave our solar system, which is probably like a small part of a grain of sand leaving a beach on our planet in the great scheme of things.

Anyway, here’s the poem to ponder:

English: Venus flytrap anemone (Actinoscyphia aurelia). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gaia’s Gravity, Alien Attraction

Venus fly trap

sucks living insects

betwitching luscious leaves

crunching nutritional value

in our planet’s bogs, swampy world needed life

comets provided particles

bubbling thermal vents

sprinkled space organisms

Earth hot stew

Marc Latham has books available on Smashwords and Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/author/marclatham).

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Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus Speaking Rational Humanism

Hi, it’s Grey Greyvara, social conscience at the Greenygrey. When Marc Latham was studying for his PhD from 2000-2005 he was considered a Jew in a derogatory Islamo-fascist-liberal way for daring to say the Middle-East was a cycle of violence; mostly influenced by the work of media analyst with a cool surname Gadi Wolfsfeld.

Islamo-fascism continued in the area Marc lived, and that persecution of anything criticising Islam probably helped inspire some of those involved in the 7/7 bombings of 2005.

British Left-Wing Support of Islamism 

Nazi Wandering Jew propaganda at Yad Vashem (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Marc was still quite a radical socialist during that time, so was critical of Islam for its social inequality and human rights abuses. But criticism of Islam at university was decoded and demonised as being pro-West, pro-Israeli and right-wing.

Marc understands this is the way the world is divided between east and west; highlighted in the Syrian conflict recently. Marc doesn’t like the U.S. blockade of Cuba, but also doesn’t like Cuba’s alliance with countries such as Syria and Iran; although the West’s ally in the Middle-East Saudi Arabia also has a terrible human rights record.

While that might sound Islamophobic, Marc enjoyed his time in Islamic countries when travelling through them in the 1980s. It’s not Islamic people on the whole that Marc criticises, it is their rulers and ideologies.

BEWARE GEORGE GALLOWAY IS THE NEXT HITLER (Photo credit: pixelhut)

Unfortunately, Islamism has risen since the 1980s, inspiring more people to become extremists. This has had a knock-on effect in other countries and religions, with more Christian and Jewish extremists, as well as more radical atheists.

As a focus on Islamism took over the left in the U.K.; originally through New Labour, and now epitomised by George Galloway; and 7/7 happened; Marc moved to the political centre, and out of academic life, leading to Greenygrey theory on this here websitey.

From Marxism to Scandinavian Democracy 

Green field & green person (Photo credit: Let Ideas Compete)

Marc moved from being a bit of a British Marxist, common in 1980s Britain, to a Scandinavian style democratic socialist; although Scandinavia has also changed politically since the Utopian post-World War II era, and many parts have become more capitalist.

However, it still scores highly in most standard-of-living and democratic ideals ratings: equality, press freedom, freedom of speech, environmental innovation etc.

Abba‘s Bjorn Ulvaeus on religion 

Cover of Björn Ulvaeus

So I was interested to hear Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus express similar views to Marc on religion recently, published on the British Rationalist Association website; and in particular on the negativity and threat of Islamism.

Moreover, our ol’ pal Marc Latham replied on September 18th, before the latest explosion of Islamism in Kenya (and Pakistan, where dozens of Christians were killed in a Taliban suicide bombing attack):

‘Israel has some responsibility in the Middle-East, because of its expansionism, but it is only Islam that is still spreading religious war around the region, and out into the rest of the world.

And even then, Judaism was around for about 1000 years before Islam, and Christianity for about 500 years before Islam, and they are both trying desperately to hold on to some land/a foothold in their Middle-East homes.’

Marc hopes that Iran’s election of the more moderate Rouhani and his recent peaceful overtones to the ‘West’ can bring a new era of hope to the Middle-East.

Bjorn Ulvaeus Swedish Humanist 

I didn’t know that Bjorn Ulvaeus was a Swedish humanist until I read that interview, or that he’d had a similar religious journey to Marc Latham until watching the following interview.

Bjorn Ulvaeus was also a secular freedom of speech advocate who didn’t take much interest in religion until the rise of Islamism and 9/11:

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Bottlenose Dolphin Sea Journey follows Bingie Trilogy

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. With all the bad news in the human world this week it seems like an ideal time to escape with the satirical comedy travel quest classic epic Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps. Especially as this episode sees the WoOs set off up the east coast on a  literary nonsense poetry bottlenose dolphin bonanza.

Trilogy Tower (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

However, first of all there’s even more bee wordplay. Maybe Werewolf of Oz analysts will one day argue over whether the Bingie Bee Bungee was really a trilogy, or whether this episode made it a quartet. Maybe you will too?

Chapter 108.  Bye-Bye Bingie, we’re off on a Bottlenose Fantasy

I slept well, and the others all seemed ready to leave when I first looked up. They were chatting jollily, and there seemed to be another new spirit amongst them.

Buzzing Off from the Bees of Bingie

The bees provided a beeautiful brekkie of honey beescuits. I felt a new surge of energy flow through my body afterwards.

After brekkying

on beescuits

we packed away

and made our way

out to sea

for parley

with Barry

and family.

Be Safe said the Bees All at Sea 

A bottlenose dolphin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The bees flew out as far as the first horizon, which was the limit of their safe flight range; but some bungeed a little farther. They all sang goodbyee. It was a beeautiful sight from the early morning ocean, lit up aquamarine by the new day’s sun.

The harness and raft worked well. Barry and I swam in the front, with Barry’s wife and three calves in two rows behind us.

It felt dynamite to be a dolphin again yessiree,

freely swimming in the wild open sea,

bounding as a bottlenose with great company,

although it was a shame to leave the bees of Bingie.

Link for Amazon book and kindle.

Link for multiple Ereaders at Smashwords.

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Mirror Poem Mixes Nietzsche and Diogenes Free Thinking

Hi, it’s William Wolfsworth, poetry correspondent at the Greenygrey. My human parallel William Wordsworth and his Romantic movement chums tried to open their minds to nature and the real world in the late 18th-19th centuries. Friedrich Nietzsche also stressed the importance of independent thinking in his philosophical works late in the 19th century. This has inspired Marc Latham’s new Folding Mirror poem.

Greek Philosophers Inspired Great Thinkers 

Aristotle, a 4th-century-BCE philosopher, portrayed in 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle as a 15th-century-CE scholar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Although great thinkers like Wordsworth and Nietzsche are very important, they were just adding to ideas already formulated over 2000 years previously in ancient Greece.

Aristotle influenced Nietzsche and he also inspired his contemporary, Diogenes of Sinope. Diogenes was labelled ‘Socrates gone mad’, and ‘the Dog’, as he preferred to live a vagrant life with stray dogs to a normal life within civilisation.

Today’s Scientists Know More than History’s Great Thinkers 

However, although all the above are great thinkers, in their day they could only theorise much of the information that we now take for granted. This week the Voyager spacecraft became the first human object to leave our solar system.

Tonda with T.K. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In Aristotle and Diogenes’s time they still thought the Earth was at the centre of everything.

In line with Goethe’s independent thinking, neurologists have discovered how power affects the brain physically; deactivating nerve circuits that help us internalise others’ experiences.

In line with Diogenes’s valuing of animals, scientists have also discovered that orangutans plan their day.

Mirror Poem of Free Independent Thinking

Because Nietzsche was more modern and aspired to rise above he’s on the top of the Folding Mirror poem. Diogenes is on the bottom because he was in history when Nietzsche was thinking great thoughts, possibly being one of the undercurrents in Nietzsche’s thinking, and because he aspired to the bottom. Here it is:

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (Photo credit: risu)

Aristotle’s Disciples Meet, Middle Divides Ages

rise above

others

yourself

what outside forces expect of you

what power you seek to gain

to create your ideal

to be your ideal creation

self control, humanity’s goal

living at one with nature

creating a visible virtue

a reality within mind and self

that cannot be broken or stolen

proud

living

outside society

English: Statue of Diogenes, Sinop, Turkey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Marc Latham’s poetry books are available on Smashwords and Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/author/marclatham).

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Islamists Deserve Nazi Comparison: But Which Ones?

The Al-Shabab attack on Nairobi, Kenya‘s Westgate shopping centre is a reminder about who Western leaders are helping in Syria. While the Syrian conflict is terrible for innocent civilians, the ‘West’ should not provide any help to rebels containing al-Quaeda elements. Their ‘help’ would soon filter down to groups like Al-Shabab, and other groups trying to Islamise Africa.

Hi, it’s Wolf Whitzer, intrepid satirical comedy newshound at the Greenygrey with an unfortunately very serious news report.

Framing Syria in History

English: A volcano called Syria (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While Western leaders were trying to build support for action against Assad in Syria they framed the conflict with WWII historical references.

Top British and American leaders compared their decision on Syria to that which the Allies faced with the Nazis in 1938: warning of the dangers of appeasement, and Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons to the Nazis’ gassing of nearly 6 million people during World War II.

Al-Shabab Kenya Attack Shows Syria Complexity 

However, even if Assad did use chemical weapons there is no good side in Syria to support, with the rebels infiltrated by Islamic Fundamentalists like the Al-Shabab who attacked Nairobi, Kenya‘s Westgate shopping centre this weekend. 

Their singling out of non-Muslims (the inferior kafir non-believers, white and non-white to Islamists) for execution is reminiscent of the Nazis’ persecution of undesirables, and should awaken those thinking of helping them in Syria up to the reality of who they would be supporting.

Al-Quaeda are the Nazis to be Isolated

Assad’s Syrian government might have similarities to the Nazis, but the al-Quaeda inspired rebels have more; and more hatred of non-Muslim kafirs.

We should remember that we (non-Muslims) are all considered inferior to them, and they want to martyr themselves because they believe they are going somewhere better; somewhere very similar to the Christian heaven written in the bible about 500 years before their heaven became known.

The ‘West’ should view all al-Quaeda groups like the Nazis before World War II, and not provide any appeasement or support to them. That means staying out of Syria.

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Werewolf of Oz Leaves Bingie with Barry

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. One good thing about leaving the first episode of Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps until late in the week is that there isn’t such a long wait until the second episode. 

And here it is, bringing the brief Bingie bee bungee trilogy to a close with lots of a bee see wordplay, before starting off up the east coast with an old friend from Kalbarri; maybe you remember Grey getting an urge to call Barry when it reached Kalbarri?

Chapter 107.  Bingie Bungee Bees and Kalbarri Barry 

English: Barbeque corn on the beach, Bali Bahasa Indonesia: Jagung panggang di pantai, Bali (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We thanked the bees for the bungee to Bingie, and were about to leave, but then one flew over to us. She introduced herself as Beeatrice, before asking us not to buzz off straightaway, as they were having a beebeecue on the beeach that night.

A beebee on Bingie beach with Beeatrice and the bungeeing bees was too much to resist, so we quickly agreed in unison. We spent the afternoon chilling in the sea, and evening soon came.

Barry Joins Bee BBQ

We’d filled our bellies and were enjoying a tinny

or two with beeautiful company

when I thought I heard a familiar click out at sea

and then realised it was Kalbarri Barry.

After calling him over, I asked what he was doing all the way over the other side of Oz. He said he was holidaying with the family. I thought it was an amazing coincidence that we were both in Bingie at the same time, but you know, these things happen on the road… and at sea.

Raft of the Medusa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Barry Suggests Sydney

Barry said they were setting off for Sydney the next day, and invited us along. I hadn’t shapeshifted for a while, so I suggested I shift into a bottlenose and swim with Barry and his family; pulling the others behind us on a makeshift raft. Everybody agreed to the idea, and we constructed the raft after the beerilliant bbq finished.

As the last embers of the fire lost their glow, we fitted the harness to the raft using the moonlight that silverlined across the ocean to our place on the sand.

Link for Amazon book and kindle.

Link for multiple Ereaders at Smashwords.

 

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Time Philosophy and Nature Images

Hi, it’s Baron Wolfman, artistic head honcho at the Greenygrey in the absence of Andy Wolfhol. I haven’t been around for a while, as you might have noticed, as I was off looking for ol’ Wolfhol. I didn’t find him, but did have a few thoughts, and found a few greenygrey images. Here they are:

GG Philosophy and Nature Images

Greenygrey can be that time between – the time when the past and future meet and merge, before going their own ways; rather than just passing through or by each other.

It’s when reality is suspended as it transforms, like the time between television channels being changed, or travel times being altered, or the deja vu feeling of past and present meeting in a void: when there is nothing there, and no defined time.

Sometimes you reach that state for a prolonged time, when doing an adrenalin or creative activity, or just having a good daydream.

Sometimes you just don’t notice it.

Transcendental landscapes by Catherine Nelson.

The-House-In-The-Woods-Kai-Fagerstrom

The-House-In-The-Woods-Kai-Fagerstrom

The-House-In-The-Woods-Kai-Fagerstrom

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Werewolf of Oz Bingie Trilogy 2 Ride Tandem

The weekend is here

with still no were

wolf of Oz episode

so here’s the latest road

to the end of the tale

travel quest they dare not fail…

Link for Amazon book and kindle.

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. Yep, it’s Friday, and things have been so busy and Gremliny that we haven’t had time for an episode of your fave werewolf travels Australia with Aussie celebrities to a Wizard of Oz theme satirical comedy travel quest.

So here’s the second of the Bingie bungee bees trilogy, which includes lots of bee wordplay, as well as a famous PG Tips tea chimp cyclists tea advert from yesteryear, which we’ve included here:

Chapter 106.  Bungee to Bingie Begun by a Bee

The others stirred soon after, and Angry asked about all the noise. I explained about the bungees from Bingie. I was worried Angry may get angry, but he remained calm. After seeming lost in thought for a minute, he suggested we ask the bungeeists if we could hitch a lift north. I thought it was a great use of his mind.

Can You Ride Tandem? 

When the next bungeeists appeared from the north, Angry asked if we could hitch a lift to Bingie. One buzzed it would be no problem, and that they’d arrange for four tandem bungees to be used next time.

We packed up our gear, including a few spare spuds, and waited for our lifts. It was not long before four bungees appeared over the horizon.

It was a bit of a mad scramble, but we all got onto a bungee, and were soon flying through the air on our way to Bingie. It was only after I was on the bungee that I realised the pilot was a bee. And he was a very happy bee indeed. His obvious love for bungeeing was infectious, and I couldn’t wait to get bungeeing. It didn’t disappoint.

It was a truly exhilarating ride, and ended too quickly for my liking. We all landed beerilliantly in Bingie, and were as happy as Larry Bee. That was the name of my pilot.

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Notes

‘Can you ride tandem?’ was a phrase used in a PG Tips advert starring bicycle-riding chimps in 1971.

Happy as Larry is an idiom meaning very happy; it is thought to have originated in Australia or New Zealand.

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