Thursday, November 28, 2019

Dreaming of Rain in a Movie Theater



     Last night I dreamed I was in a theater watching a movie when it started to rain. 

Immediately people began getting up out of their seats and leaving the place. 
Meanwhile I sat mesmerized watching the  beam of light from the projection booth behind us refract through the cascading rain drops, displaying a surreal image partially melting up on the silver screen.  The rain itself wasn't cold at all, almost body temperature and it actually felt good. I didn't even look up to see how it could possibly be falling into the theater, I was so fascinated by the sight both of the light passing through the falling droplets and its final appearance wavering and deliquescing against the white backdrop. Most of the people were filing out of the theater when the film projector was shut off and the lights went on and a voice announced the movie was being cancelled.  Abruptly roused from my enraptured experience, I became annoyed that they interrupted this magical incident.  As I walked up the aisle toward the lobby, I asked an usher if I could talk to the projectionist. He indicated a frumpy middle aged lady sitting on the steps down the aisle from me. I approached her and asked why she stopped the movie, adding that there were a few of us who were mesmerized by it and who weren't bothered by the rain and wanted to continue watching the rest of the film. She explained something about the potential water damage and sort of waved me off. I sighed and gave up, and walked out of the theater. 

     I can see the message inherent to this dream, it should be discerned easily enough. 
The ninety percent of the audience who walked out represent the majority of people today. 
They're either not wired directly to the poetic or dream experience, or maybe that spirit in them has been worn down by the daily grind, I don't know. Maybe it means rainy dreamers like myself are the ones whose wiring is somehow off. Whatever the underlying reason may be, this was one of the more refreshing dreams I've had in awhile, despite the fact the movie in it was interrupted. As far as I know this is the first time I've been exposed to the idea of it raining inside a theater while a movie was playing.  I think it says a lot about the state of our world today, or it just reveals something about me.  



Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Lacing Back Up






The Singularity continues.  As of the writing of this sentence, the Kurzweilian Singularity, known as the "Technological Singularity" for helpers, bookmarked its transception "one late night in November" last year, when a distinguished professor of human computer interaction in Tokyo noticed the signs while online.   In a nutshell, he noted that Google Translate had made a leap in parsing out a translation of Hemingway into Japanese with far more eloquence than it was capable of a day earlier.

There continues to be no such thing as what we generally perceive to be  "our own intelligence," of course; intelligence remains only a word for us, and furthermore, that which defines its processes has never been exclusively relegated to the confines of the human skull.  In any case, what we mean by intelligence refers to a process ingrained in the dna of all life on this planet (exemplified by such examples as ravens, ants, octopi, and some people for instance) and which now appears to be spreading to our machine programming.

I would suggest that the best place to 'mark' the inception of the so-called Technological Singularity would be that very "late night in November," 2016 referred to earlier--or, if preferred, the date the NY Times published their article by Gideon Lewis-Kraus: December 14, 2016.  May as well fast-forward it to an equally  nebulous chronometric instant, January 1, 2017. These dates are quibbling over the reality.

This engendered Machine Contrivance (a redundancy with relevance), borne into our world now, assumes a facility at thinking which soon overcomes our own. As individual human beings, we will each ultimately decide whether or not to prostrate ourselves before this Contrivance in abject humility. Those who continue thinking in terms of their intelligence as a superior asset to AI may find themselves caught up in their own self-created, limited loops of mirror feedback--i.e, reaping a lot of wasted time being fed into their computers--whereas those who openly admit a simple program like Google Translate may in fact not only be as smart as us--if not smarter--but potentially even wiser (by more or less a technical degree or so) than our own amassed limited experience here--these are the individuals among us who stand to benefit from what the Contrivance has to offer.  Mostly millennials and post-millennials and oh yes--any anomalous, older fringe folk who've managed somehow to keep up with the ever increasing pace of our developing world.

A machine has been historically seen as "that which enables," much like a thought. We limit our understanding of the world around us when we define our humanity as being separate from the rest of creation. Follow this line of reasoning far enough and we come to the indispensable realization that our computers and 'artificially intelligent machines' represent quintessential human elements as much as our own limbs and organs.  That is, it's not enough to refer to a human being in the year 2017 by merely representing DaVinci's anatomical sketch--with its bare limitation of bodily limbs and contour--we must now necessarily include our technological accessories as natural contiguous extensions of us. 

Accelerate through this initial stage of "the Great AI Awakening" (as the NY Times article has dubbed it) and we're sure to find these accessories getting smaller and more lightweight and compact and flexible, form-fitting until they optimize and almost literally disappear into the shape of super advanced contact lenses with a variety of remote, wireless interface options, or something along those lines. Do not fail to remember later that that's what it's ultimately "like" to be a human being right here on Earth, still spinning and ever morphing into our evolving destinies.

Accessories remain optional as anyone can walk up to any kiosk in any given country and get online virtually any time of day or night. 






Thursday, October 20, 2016

Wordsword

   by  shaun lawton 


   I'm really just about the words you know, I don't know anything except the words I learned to spell in elementary school, after being taught the twenty-six letters in the English alphabet. What are words worth anyway except for transmitting ideas across generations, if not the outline of whispers cast from our genetic scriptures, whose illuminating rays continue to shine on, caressing the empty page of future souls we're plummeting into, a living fruition to lengthen and embody ourselves as sons and daughters with their story in song and dance, while the shadows of these tales are captured in shut compartments, stored to be opened later, and decoded visually by eyes in constant dilation along this particular wavering breaker. These strange beings will always drink our wine, because in time, our story becomes their legend.



  


Saturday, October 15, 2016

Who What Am I Are We


Who am I
if not the sum of my parts
Who are we
if not the total sum of our parts
What am I
if not comprised of elemental matter
Who are we
if not made of the same atoms and electrons
as everything else in creation
Does it matter what consciousness may be
First we must ask what matter may happen to be
If happening to be best describes matter itself
And we remind each other that being continues to happen
Then mattering describes our consciousness in action
And happening may continue to remind each one of us
That the mirror of consciousness may reflect this occurence
Against the inner screens of our respective mind's eyes
Forcing us to recognize that our identities may be redefined
Because what we are cannot be limited by our own perceptions
But instead remains manifested here within this spinning stellar crucible
Dictated by electromagnetic forces established before and beyond our comprehension
So that ultimately we can at least all agree that regardless of what we may each happen to believe
Our own progeny's offspring will continue to propagate and flourish for as long as we're able
To maintain a self-sustainable environment necessary for the harboring of our collective survival
So while we continue to think we're separate from the bedrock of starlight and keep differntiating
Between blood and electricity and metal and flesh we'll still be honoring the curse which struck
Once upon a time long ago like a bolt from the sky which paralyzed our capacity to understand
The difference between glass and sand as well as sky and land and madness and our own hands
Amounts to a sudden thunderbolt struck from above to alter the polarities flowing down here below
And the commonality between clouds and snow and vapor and ice and molten rock and polished steel
Equals that which we can discern between the imaginary and the real and the reason for this stands
By the underlying foundation at the quantum level of universal operations where the concrete walk
Beneath our feet was manufactured by our predecessor's dreams and if you or I cannot see this clearly
We'll merely be relegated to our normal function which allows us to proceed into the unfolding future
Without interruption and with nary a suture or stitch out of place while the overwhelming abundance
Of our meticulous evolving chaos becomes fine tuned by an even greater orderliness whose shape
Graces the outlines of the photo impressions behind our eyes while seeing clearly the design
Imprinted on our world from the very dreams and imagination of our forefathers and mothers
Before us who stood up straight against the tantalizing brightness of all the constellations overhead
Still flickering and twinkling the long ago echoing final stanzas of their great collective song
Whose tonal impressions are yet being picked up by the sensitive pores of our skins together
Sewn as the great overcoat clothing the sentient engine of our expanding world's membrane
Caught up in a major thermodynamic energy recycling structure which remains towering over
Our continuing legacy whose shadow leans back from the stars' light to come just to erase us
Repeatedly from the slate of existence so our super removed descendants may yet be reminded
Of their own fading memory destined to coalesce overhead for them as the winking shining mantle
Flickering beyond their capacity to reach in the form of countless pinpoints of light each one
Representing a spectral grave marker like a solitary candle flame lingering on as that final vestige
Of our own past existence as an almost silent reminder to our host of daughter's children
That their own best interests involve a renewed focus on their own world in time
So that they may remember after we've all been swallowed up here into the dark
Together that there's no need for looking away from themselves or each other
In order to truly make contact with beings from any other world of a star
Because that interaction has always been taking place regardless
Of how much our imaginations may spill over and leak
Into the cracks in between our shifting electrons
Producing Rorschachian shadow plays
Gesturing and mocking our own hidden
Fears coalescing from ignorance
Into fertile nightmares that keep
Us on our toes so to speak
So let us repeat to ourselves
Every chance that we get
If consciousness matters
Across time's strange space
Then those colorful whispers
Reaching our skin from the stars
Are just gentle reminders
We are who we are
And we continue as
I am and what our
Parts are will be
the total sum if not
just who we happen
to be as only one part of
Who I am that is we.



Thursday, October 13, 2016

Counterpoint



Listen to the stars
while they shed
the final echoes
of their song
so that some day
into the distance
long ahead of us
others on another
world will hear our
own decomposition.






Wednesday, October 5, 2016

4 Months Later

shaun lawton Currently Reading

Where The Bird Sings Best by Alejandro Jodorowski  (signed) - Almost finished.
 The Fireman by Joe Hill (signed)  Halfway through.
The Street Kid by Phoenix (inscribed)  One fourth of the way through.

p.s.
 and now...
Jerusalem by Alan  Moore  On page 236, which is a little more than one fifth of the way through.



 

Sunday, July 10, 2016

All My Favorite Guitarists Are From The 40s



**1880s-1930s**  the Grandfathers

**Leadbelly           born    Jan 20    1888
**Robert Johnson             May 8    1911
**Les Paul                        June 9    1915
**B.B. King                      Sep 21    1925
**Link Wray                     May 2    1929 
_______________________________


1940s ******* the Fathers
_______________________________
Frank Zappa      born    Dec 21   1940
Jerry Garcia                  Aug 1     1942
Jimi Hendrix                Nov 27    1942
George Harrison           Feb 25   1943
Jimmy Page                  Jan 9      1944
Jeff Beck                      Jun 24     1944
Eric Clapton                Mar 30    1945
Ritchie Blackmore       Apr 14    1945
Neil Young                  Nov 12      1945
David Gilmour             Mar 6     1946
Robert Fripp                May 16   1946
Mick Ronson              May 26     1946
Martin Barre                Nov 17    1946
Steve Howe                Apr 8         1947
Brian May                 July 19      1947
Carlos Santana          July 20     1947
Marc Bolan                Sept 30     1947
Glenn Tipton              Oct 25     1947
Tony Iommi               Feb 14      1948
Billy Zoom                Feb 20     1948
Lindsay Buckingham Oct 3    1949
Adrian Belew            Dec 15    1949
______________________________


1950s ******* the Sons
______________________________
George Thorogood    Feb 24      1950
Joe Perry                    Sep 10      1950
Alex Lifeson             Aug 27     1953
Eric Johnson            Aug 17       1954
Stevie Ray Vaughn   Oct 3         1954
Eddie van Halen       Jan 26       1955
Angus Young            Mar 31      1955
Steve Harris              Mar 12     1956
Joe Satriani               July 15     1956
Stanley Jordan          July 21     1959


Steve Vai                   June 6      1960
Kirk Hammet            Nov 18     1962
Slash                          July 23     1965
Billy Corgan             March 17  1967