{"id":15647,"date":"2014-05-23T12:06:18","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T16:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=15647"},"modified":"2014-05-23T12:06:18","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T16:06:18","slug":"confused-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/confused-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Confused Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/156278242?et=BNcwQvC8S1FkZhby75CA6Q&amp;sig=fA6E3gP3RiGZCyQr_n_wNEIsfNRN0btnkdX3Xfg0HHc=\" width=\"600\" height=\"471\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>From <em><a title=\"whiskey river: William Saroyan, on the complex, almost mad psychology of the world\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2014\/05\/the-most-interesting-thing-about-world.html\" target=\"_blank\">whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The most interesting thing about the world is its fantastic and unpsychoanalyzed character, its wretched and gallant personality, its horrible idiocy and its magnificent intelligence, its unbelievable cruelty and its equally unbelievable kindness, its gorilla stupor, its canary cheerfulness, its thundering divinity, and its whimpering commonness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(William Saroyan [<em><a title=\"Google Books: 'The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come to Our Town,' by Mary Bray Pipher (Saroyan quoted, from 'My Name Is Saroyan')\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=0Cz3VqBUk1cC&amp;pg=PT298#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: Chuang Tzu, on mindless noise from the sky\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2014\/05\/it-belches-out-breath-and-its-name-is.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"explannote\" title=\"Not a typo, but 'clod' as in 'mass [of something]': the Great Clod is the world, the absolute, *everything*\">The Great Clod<\/span> belches out breath and its name is wind. So long as it doesn&#8217;t come forth, nothing happens. But when it does, then ten thousand hollows begin crying wildly. Can&#8217;t you hear them, long and drawn out? In the mountain forests that lash and sway, there are huge trees a hundred spans around with hollows and openings like noses, like mouths, like ears, like jugs, like cups, like mortars, like rifts, like ruts. They roar like waves, whistle like arrows, screech, gasp, cry, wail, moan, and howl, those in the lead calling out <em>yeee!<\/em>, those behind calling out <em>yuuu!<\/em> In a gentle breeze they answer faintly, but in a full gale the chorus is gigantic. And when the fierce wind has passed on, then all the hollows are empty again. Have you never seen the tossing and trembling that goes on?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Chuang Tzu [<em><a href=\"Google Books: 'The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu,' by Zhuangzi\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from whiskey river:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>The Alphabet Conspiracy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"epigraph\">The word is the making of the world.<\/span> &#8212;Wallace Stevens<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a filmstrip afternoon<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">and we&#8217;re all grateful<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">to the humming projector<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">in the middle of our desks,<\/span><br \/>\nthe closed blinds, the absence of a real adult.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a vague promise of revelation<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">from the title<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">and the dark, tree-lined streets, the voice<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">calling from a house<\/span><br \/>\ncarrying within it our freedom not to answer.<\/p>\n<p>Inside another house, a little girl in a pretty dress<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">is falling asleep<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">at her father&#8217;s desk, turning into<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">Alice in Wonderland<\/span><br \/>\nas her mind falls down the rabbit holes of grammar.<\/p>\n<p>The Mad Hatter and Jabberwocky<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">tell her to lure<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">the letters into a trap so they can beat them<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">to death with mallets.<\/span><br \/>\nWe&#8217;d like to see that. Without words<\/p>\n<p>no one could tell us what to do.<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">We know grammar is just a byproduct,<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">like schizophrenia, of a brain that grew<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">too fast for its own good<\/span><br \/>\nand that history is a series of conspiracies<\/p>\n<p>by accidental despots. Mrs. Bradford is<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">falling asleep on the wide window ledge,<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">her blue polyester pants gapped<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">to reveal her white socks<\/span><br \/>\nand pink spotted shins. We try not to look.<\/p>\n<p>The Mad Hatter doesn&#8217;t say that the alphabet<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">was first used to keep track of property<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">or that for centuries people believed<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">if women learned to write<\/span><br \/>\nthe lost world would never be recovered<\/p>\n<p>or that the Mayans believed<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">outsiders wrote things down<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">not in order to remember them<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">but to free themselves<\/span><br \/>\ninto the work of forgetting.<\/p>\n<p>That year Mrs. Bradford taught us about<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">the Lewis &amp; Clark expedition<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">over and over again. We never learned<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">why it mattered so much to her<\/span><br \/>\nor what possible use it could be to anyone.<\/p>\n<p>The professor tells Judy about<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">the thousands of words<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">Arabs needed for camels and their parts,<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">the dozen words Eskimos had for snow,<\/span><br \/>\nand a chimp who learned seven human words.<\/p>\n<p>A voice made visible says:<br \/>\n<em><span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">magic is a matter of fact to you,<\/span><\/em><br \/>\n<em> <span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">Every miracle has to have its qualifications,<\/span><\/em><br \/>\n<em> <span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">reservations, footnotes<\/span><\/em><br \/>\nand our heads rise from our desks.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the year will be a series of<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">substitute teachers<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">who teach us nothing but footnotes<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">and their own reservations.<\/span><br \/>\nMrs. Bradford dead of a brain tumor.<\/p>\n<p>We sit in our sixth-grade desks with the blinds<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">closed against the tree-lined streets<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">as the letters of the world rise up<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 3.5em;\">and, forming a single word,<\/span><br \/>\neclipse our world and fill our mouths with shadows.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Rita Mae Reese [<a title=\"Poetry Foundation: 'The Alphabet Conspiracy,' by Rita Mae Reese\" href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poem\/244512\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Anything is one of a million paths&#8230; Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. This question is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. I will tell you what it is: does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor&#8217;s question has meaning now. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn&#8217;t it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn&#8217;t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Carlos Castaneda [<a title=\"Google Books: 'The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge,' by Carlos Castaneda\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=_3vfmEwoO1AC&amp;pg=PA82#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I have lived on the lip<br \/>\nof insanity, wanting to know reasons,<br \/>\nknocking on a door. It opens.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve been knocking from the inside!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Jalal al-Din Rumi [<a title=\"Amazon.com: 'The Essential Rumi,' by Jalal al-Din Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks and John Moyne)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Essential-Rumi-Jalal-al-Din\/dp\/0062509586#reader_0062509586\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>While searching for the original, definitive text of Rita Mae Reese&#8217;s &#8220;The Alphabet Conspiracy&#8221; (above) &#8212; and before just giving up and accepting the Poetry Foundation&#8217;s version &#8212; I came across an odd bit of background: the poem is based on an episode of an old, 1950s-60s &#8220;educational TV&#8221; series called <a title=\"Wikipedia, on 'The Bell Laboratory Science Series'\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Bell_Laboratory_Science_Series\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Bell Laboratory Science Series<\/em><\/a>. This one (with embedded animations by Fritz Freleng, one of the masters of Warner Brothers cartoons) was on linguistics; others covered astronomy, physiology, the senses, time, and so on.<\/p>\n<p>I found <a title=\"YouTube: 'The Alphabet Conspiracy'\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLA564D7A1594859A9\" target=\"_blank\">a YouTube playlist<\/a> (with subtitles!) for the entire &#8220;Alphabet Conspiracy&#8221; episode. Here&#8217;s Part 1:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FPrvE5O1d7w\" width=\"601\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Warner Brothers animation or not, I don&#8217;t think this threatens the legacy and popularity of any more recent science series!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From whiskey river: The most interesting thing about the world is its fantastic and unpsychoanalyzed character, its wretched and gallant personality, its horrible idiocy and its magnificent intelligence, its unbelievable cruelty and its equally unbelievable kindness, its gorilla stupor, its canary cheerfulness, its thundering divinity, and its whimpering commonness. (William Saroyan [source]) &#8230;and: The Great [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,342,196,274,50,251],"tags":[1243,1337,2794,3367,3803,3804,3805],"class_list":{"0":"post-15647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-looney-tunes","9":"category-television","10":"category-cartoons","11":"category-language-writing_cat","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-carlos-castaneda","14":"tag-william-saroyan","15":"tag-chuang-tzu","16":"tag-rumi","17":"tag-rita-mae-reese","18":"tag-educational-tv","19":"tag-xavier-arnau","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-44n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15647"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15660,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15647\/revisions\/15660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}