Que Sera, Sera ... ?

So, while doing research on the new novel, I came across an interesting little bit of information.

In Tibet, there used to be a somewhat pugnacious order of Buddhist monks who were apparently handy with fist or blade, and willing to use either or both without much provocation. Hundreds of them were apparently killed during a revolution in 1947.

Gone during the Chinese invasion in 1959, most of them, not a few of whom apparently went down swinging.

What is fascinating about this to me is that this fraternity of fellows, called the Dob-dob, operated out of a large monastery known as Sera.

Which name, if you've been paying attention, you know is also the core name of the Indonesian martial art I study: Pukulan Pentjak Silat Sera ...

Given my writer's mind, this opens up another whole train of thought.

As well as maybe another historical can of worms. I love it.

So much I don't know. So little time ...

Bambi vs. Godzilla

So, I'm reading Bambi vs. Godzilla by David Mamet. Subtitled, On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business.

Mamet writes books, plays, scripts, and has been an actor, director, and producer, too. He's done some terrific stuff. (You martial arts fans might know him from his TV series, The Unit. Or for the upcoming movie Redbelt, which he wrote and directed, about MMA, and which has a slew of well-known fighters and martial arts guys in it, including Danny Inosanto ...

The title of this recent book comes from the brief animated movie classic, Bambi Meets Godzilla, featured up top.

Mamet is a lyrical and accomplished author, and if you have any desire to hear about how Hollywood works from somebody who knows, this is a great read.

Early on, he talks about producers, and says, yes, there are good ones. He tells a story about Otto Preminger, and the making of Exodus. Preminger told Mamet he was shooting the movie in Israel, and he needed ten thousand extras for a crowd scene, but he didn't have the budget to hire them.

What did you do? Mamet asked.

I charged them. Put up posters all over town -- BE IN A MOVIE -- TEN SHEKELS!

No problem filling the square with warm bodies.

Mamet's comment? Now that's what he calls a producer ...

Knife Carrier

Came across this cleaning up. The construction is crude, but the idea is pretty good -- a paddle holster/sheath. This paddle came off an old snubbie holster, and I mounted a pair of kerambits on it. Weak-hand draw, and very comfortable.

The paddle works even if you don't have a belt on -- you just slip it into your waistband -- I put on a pair of pajama pants to demonstrate it.

Looks like one knife in the sheath, and also when you draw, but that's the surprise ...

Dreadnaught Report

Most of the readers have now weighed in, and there have been some good suggestions, some of which we are even going to use ...

First of these is to include a dramatis personae, up front, so people can keep track of who is whom.

We'll also include a glossary of terms, in the back, and the map, some version of which will probably be in the front.

Reaves and I have discussed some other changes, included among which is the death of a viewpoint character. Hate to do it, but it sets up something in the next book, and no, it's not Ven.

Here's the character list:

The Dreadnaught

Dramatis Personae


The Stahlrogians:

Borahl alb Kohn

Naval Officer, Under Commander (Yousee),
The Stahlrogian Dreadnaught Britta.

Villem nahl Tesar

Prime Prince, General in the Royal Army,
and Heir to the Stahlrogian Throne.

Tahk Berger

Ship’s Commander (Escee) the Britta.

Britta Farloon pul Tesar

Princess Consort, Wife of Villem,
daughter of the King of Dotterjord.

Hans nahl Tesar

Kaliser of Stahlrogia.

Berhard Tesar

The Kaliser’s brother.

Purgois

A spy and assassin.

Dovel

Natural Philosopher & Machinist

Sel Daveed

Natural Philosopher & Machinist

Girandhoff

Dovel’s Assistant


___________________________________________________

The Jalimatrans:

Djani Djalanji

Fifth son of the Rahjeem of Maluz.

Guru Bruj

Combat teacher and Chief of the Rajheem’s guard.

Tjela Pemaja

Mage.

Patro Kalam

Priest, Order of Aal’s Hand.

___________________________________________________


The Isbaani:

Hazin Hazin

Eunuch, Chief Guard, The Shamir’s Wifery.

Asfür

Hazin’s parrot

Sirsir ab Kaab

Grand Shamir of Isbaa.

Ahmar Liss

Savant Magician.

Sahzee

Ahmar’s apprentice.

Gamila Arous

The Shamir’s Third Wife.

Shamal

An Isbaani guard.

___________________________________________________

The Kallstranians:

Hus

King of Kallstrana

Skjegg (“Sky”)

Diplomat, younger brother to King Hus.

Telga dao Ven

Archer, King’s Guard.

Kanin Dor

Blood Mage

Surl

A lieutenant in the King’s Guard.

Frazetta

Connected directly to the previous post: For my money, Frank Frazetta was the cover artist of the heyday of paperbacks. Yeah, his characters were over-the-top, but they went right along with the pulp writing perfectly. Mostly-naked muscular men, big-breasted and wide-hipped women, way cool monsters, and a vivid and striking palette of colors that gave us Tarzan, John Carter, a host of barbarians, and jungles so verdant you could smell the fetid growth and feel the humidity.

Check out the image above -- how green is that valley?

Frazetta has done comics, book covers, movie posters, and sculptures, and his originals go for insane prices these day. When I hit the lottery, I'm going to get one of his oils for my office wall. Well, not the Lotto, which is only worth a few million, but the PowerBall ...

If you have money and want to pass some of it along to him, go to Frazetta's store, run by his son, and buy something.

If you just want to see some of the paintings, check out the unofficial art site. (It's not the same as seeing them in person -- I saw a few at a science fiction con years back, and was mightily impressed.)

The Unassembled Boy

Back when I was young and lusty, the Gold Medal paperbacks were hot fuel for a young man's imagination. The sexiest of these books would probably be rated PG-13, maybe shading into the occasional R-rating; tame by today's standards, but on the throbbing edge back then.

Gold Medal became Fawcett Gold Medal along the way. And along with a plethora of other trashy paperbacks, gave us Travis McGee, by John D. MacDonald, his best and most durable hero, and a writer about whom I cannot offer too much praise. A writer's writer.

One of these lurid Gold Medal tales was a science fiction novel by Herbert D. Kastle (1924-1987), entitled The Reassembled Man. (Gold Medal, 1964.) It had a terrific Frazetta cover that more than called to teenaged boys. Cost forty-five cents. (Interesting to note that while the publication date is listed as 1964, the Frazetta cover is dated '65. Can't tell that from the cover, but I have a copy of the illo that is larger and more legible.)

The plot, such that it was, was spun about the idea that power corrupts. The set-up was that a group of alien scientists, who looked much like large beetles, came to Earth to study it. They wanted a human observer who would become their recorder. They collected an average guy, one Edward Berner, and took him apart, down to the basic cellular level, and put him back together so he was faster, stronger, impervious to illness, and a sexual dynamo. The ostensible purpose of this rebuilding was to keep him from being damaged until they were ready to download his information. Then they turned him loose.

They didn't, alas, make him smarter or wiser, and so the story concerned his abilities to indulge his appetites -- he could eat, drink, and make merry -- along with her nine sisters -- and suffer almost no ill effects. He kicked ass, took names, and got laid like he was pumping pure Viagra instead of blood. Cut a swath across the country.

A sixteen-year-old boy's wet dream.

Ed essentially becomes a bully. He is unbeatable, and while not bulletproof, has no problem beating the crap out of anybody who gives him any trouble. A brother-in-law who used to give him a hard time gets pounded. Ed's wife, at first happy with his new sexual prowess, tires of him being in charge in a hurry. Ed is movin' and shakin' and he runs over everybody who gets in his way.

He wins, but in doing so, he loses.

So, it's an old story, but you speak to a passing parade. At sixteen, I hadn't seen much of the literary column marching down my street.

The crux of the tale is Ed coming to realize that power corrupts and that he has become corrupt, and how he needs to deal with it.

However, just as he is getting it sorted out, the beetles come back, collect their recording, and decide that humanity is rather boring, so they end the project. Which includes taking away the upgrades.

Going back to where he was before was a Flowers for Algernon moment. Ed would rather be dead than do that, so the aliens gift him with minor modifications, so he isn't what he was as the near-superman, but is more than he was when he started.

Lesson learned, better than he was, and fade to black ...

Of course, I was less interested in Ed's come-to-realize stuff back then than I was in his plowing the carnal fields; still, it was a good book, in that it kept you turning the pages, and did have a point to go along with the sex and violence.

Maybe I'll go see if I can find it in that box in the attic and see how well it held up.

My Next Dog Might be a Penguin ...

8:45 a.m. this morning, out my front door ...

Ice Age

Looking out my office window and a mix of rain and slushy snow is now falling. Thirty-eight degrees F., and it is almost April -- the plum tree flowers are in full pink bloom. There's a big branch lying on the ground where the wind blew it out of the tree during the hail yesterday ...

Skywalker was right -- I got a bad feeling about this ...

(Read Tiel's poem, "Local Conditions." on her blog -- it offers some vivid imagery about this.)

Four Thousand and Counting

A photo mosiac on Nico Pitney's blog at the Huffington Post. Click on the image and see what it means.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid ...

In Hollyweird, what you see is seldom what you think it is. Movie-makers today could fool Houdini with their EFX tricks, but it's the off-camera stuff that's most interesting.

We are a youth culture, and actors and actors who want to avoid being put into the old-man or old-lady roles have all kinds of work done to hold off the ravages of time. William Shatner has been bald since his Star Trek days. There are no pictures of him thus.

So many young actresses today have dead-pans because of the wonderful side-effect of a potent poison to cause temporary muscle paralysis. They inport Botox by the trainload down in La-La-Land, and it's easy to tell. If your favorite hot young thing smiles onscreen and her forehead doesn't ever wrinkle? Same thing with the guys.

In their shoes, if my face was part of what got me work, I expect I'd have a couple plastic surgeons on retainer, too. Me, I got a face perfect for radio ...

First round surgery, under an expert with the knife, can be a big improvement: Have a look at Courtney Love, before and after, and after again. Even Cher looks pretty good for a woman a year and some older than I. There are cutters, and then there are cutters. Look uptop, and behold Mickey Rourke ...

And what happens when you can't quit while you are ahead: My. And, oh, my ...

And that's just the faces, we don't even want to go down the road to boob-jobs, lipo-suction, and calf-implants ...

Scary, when it goes bad. Curious about who has and hasn't? Michael Jackson is easy, Priscilla Presley, who looks tighter than her daughter? Sure. But how about some of your other "natural-looking" favorites?

Check out this one, a blog done by a board-certified plastic surgeon who knows how to look. Spooky stuff here.

Failure to Communicate, Part II

So, I had a visit with Rory, and in a matter of a couple minutes, we blew right past that stuff represented in the picture up top and got right down to the nitty-gritty. I have my glitch, which he and I both see; he has his, and I think maybe I see that a tad better than he does ...

But, the point is, of course, that sitting across the table and talking face-to-face gives you a raft of communications gear you don't get over the phone or in print. The gestures, the facial expressions, the tone, the body language, the pheromones, even these altogether aren't perfect, but they are worlds better than the words on the page alone.

And once again, we find we agree more than disagree. The points at which we butt heads concern control and chaos, and where we draw the lines. (Basically, if I had to parse it a few words, I'm uptight, and he's a loose cannon ...)

We may not ever see eye-to-eye, but understanding where the other guy is coming from makes it easier to maintain civil discourse. In the distance, you can see a bridge you might cross someday. At least it is possible.

Yes, of course, if he disagrees with me, why, he just hasn't seen the light, he'll come around, give him time.

I believe that statement might conceivably apply to both of us.

He's one of the good guys, part of the solution, and not the problem, and that always cuts a fellow some slack in my book. Plus he has dogs. Still, that doesn't mean I won't continue trying to show him the error of his ways.

Or, I suspect, vice-versa.

Dog Agility, Phase II

So Jude and Layla are done with the agility foundation class. Layla needs more basics, so she'll probably do an obedience class and then repeat the agility intro; Jude moves on to Agility I, soon as we can get a class scheduled.

The backyard equipment now has four barriers -- a bar jump, weave poles, open tunnel, and tire jump. Next will be a closed tunnel, (a chute,) which is a short tube open on one end, with a long cloth sleeve on the other.

After that, a teeter totter, and the last phase, an A-frame and a bridge.

On the teeter, one end is slightly heavier. The dog goes up the downed end, crosses the balance point, and causes the heavy end to drop, whereupon the dog walks down, and reaches a different color -- yellow -- whereupon he must put at least two paws before hopping off.

The A-frame is steep and has cross-strips. Dog goes up one side and down the other, same deal on the two-paw stuff.

The bridge about twenty feet long, angles up on both ends, with a long flat stretch in the center. About a foot wide, same two-paw and color stuff at the end of the run.

Those I can build, but they take a lot of space, so I will work the other stuff at home for a while, and practice at the barn for the big 'uns.

Excuse the mismatched image -- I didn't have the camera on a tripod, nor set in mosaic-mode, but you get the general idea.

The Ping Pong Test

Ping Pong, aka table tennis, is a game that my generation and the ones before us sometimes played, especially during the warm days of spring and summer. The name supposedly comes from the sound the early parchment paddles made when hitting the ball.

I was never very good at it. My mother, who used the Chinese-style grip before anybody in the U.S. knew to call it that, used to drub me regularly. Probably still can.

(In Spanglish, "los ping-pongs" refers to male, ah ... wedding tackle ...)

Um. Scoring and equipment have changed in the last few years, games are to 11 points, and sponge paddles put enough English on the balls they act like boomerangs. Good players stand fifteen or twenty feet back from the table to rally. When I played it, the game was to be the first to reach 21 points. You had to win by two points, so if you weren't two ahead at 21, you kept playing.

There were two other ways to win. You could skunk your opponent -- outplay him or her so that you got a certain number of points before he got any -- thus 7-0 was a win. We played it that 11-1 was also a skunk. After than, it was back to 21.

So here's the Ping-Pong Test, for those of you who know the game: Given a choice, and not just to entertain your bored child or grandchild whose computer has crashed, with whom would you rather play?

1) Somebody you can easily beat.
2) Somebody who can easily beat you.
3) Somebody equal to you.
4) Somebody you are slightly better than.
5) Somebody slightly better than you.

No pressure here. Except that your entire psychological makeup and outlook on life is revealed by your answer ...

Relampago

The query about what enlightenment meant to me needs perhaps a tad more:

Long ago and far away, I had a moment. A connection got made. It didn't put me on a par with Jesus or Buddha or Mohammad, but it was Relampago Santo -- the holy lightning. It burned a hole my my consciousness and let the cosmos in.

Like zen, it's impossible to explain to somebody who hasn't experienced it, but the essence was that, for a brief and blinding moment, I felt the flow of the universe. My part in it, and where all the other pieces were, and why. The good, the bad, and the ugly, and how they all meshed. The essential rightness of it, as if I somehow beheld it all.

Only a moment, then it was gone. I heard the echo for a long time, and I can remember what it felt like almost four decades later. It was in the most mundane place you can imagine: Standing in the checkout line at a supermarket on Winbourne Ave., just off the Airline Highway, in North Baton Rouge, about to buy a bottle of Boone's Farm Apple Wine.

I was not seeking it. Not expecting it. It hit me zap, just like that. Stone, cold sober.

The woman in front of me turned around, looked at my face, grinned, and said, "Oh, yeah!"

Was I touched by the finger of God? Or did I get a neuron zapped by a rare subatomic particle? Is it the same thing? Was it a total hallucination? I can't say -- but I know how it felt. I believed it was real. A door opened, a glimpse, but that was all I got.

What I think enlightenment is?

You get to live on the other side of that door.

Hallelujah

I'm a big fan of Leonard Cohen, though I came to him late -- one night I was watching Austin City Limits, this old guy in black came out and sang, in a voice to put Darth Vader's to shame, The Tower of Song, and I was riveted. I went out next day, bought CDs, and discovered after hearing them that there were all kinds of people who have covered his music.

Recently, Cohen was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and I watched that. After an acceptance speech that included reciting verses from The Tower of Song, which I found touching, Damien Rice came out, and with an acoustic guitar, played one of Cohen's most covered tunes: Hallelujah.

The song is about lost love. I don't get choked often listening to music, there are a few pieces, and this is one of them. I thought this version was especially evocative.

Science Fiction

If you have a chance to see the recent full-length movie version of Futurama, the animated series now being run on Comedy Channel, Bender's Big Score, by all means, do so. It has way too much fun, but the time-travel paradox stuff is as good as any I've seen, if somewhat more tongue-in-cheek. (And tattoo on cheek, too.)

Check it out.

Life, the Universe, and Um ... ?

After my short history of, and forecast for The Universe, an addendum: While science is wonderful as a tool, it is also limited. An acknowledgment of the limit here:

Posit the Big Bang (the Sudden Flash). Fine. Science takes us back to that.

What was there before that? In a universe where things have a cause-and-effect relationship, even though sometimes we haven't figured them out, you hit the wall. What caused the Big Bang? Science has no answer.

Religion says "God."

Or is our universe naught but a button on a giant's waistcoat?

Here, we are into the realm of magic --- or an infinite series, which is its own kind of magic, no matter that you call it mathematics. And yet, all things we know have beginnings and ends, including our universe, and if there was a beginning, how did it happen? If the buck stops at God, if God is eternal and has always been there, it's beyond my mind's grasp, but it is no more so than the infinite series. And a creator seems so much more ... elegant to me. So I'll go with that. No proof, but I don't expect any. If you have proof, it wouldn't be faith, it would be fact ...

I think whoever created the universe went off to conduct other business. I don't think God is a hands-on manager, certainly not given how screwed up this planet is; that we are instead left to our own devices. But that's just me, and I am not one to gainsay another's faith. You believe what you believe, not a problem for me, more power to you. As long as I am not required to walk your path when I am happy on my own.

Enlightenment

So, over on Rory's blog, a post on recognizing one's limits. The example he uses is of a certified enlightened zen master who leaves the monastery, but who, after a few days, returns, because the hustle of a city is harder to deal with than the calm of the monastery.

It's a good point, the stuff about limits -- but a poor example. Rory offers the caveat: "Maybe it seems that his enlightenment wasn't real if it wasn't universal. That call is up to you."

Okay, so I'm calling it -- his enlightenment wasn't real.

First, "certification of enlightenment" seems, on the face of it, unrealistic. Who certified it? Using what basis? How did they know? Since the states of moksa, nirvana, samadhi or nibbana are personal experiences, one might point at a holy woman and say, "She looks like she's there to me," but how could one certify such a thing?

(A man might have a certificate from a martial arts master that says he is an adept, but even in that case, the certificate doesn't make it so. Sometimes paper gets issued for reasons not connected to actual fighting ability, so that does not guarantee push --> shove performance.)

Second, is the definition: Enlightenment. As I understand it, once you get to be a fully-realized human being, you not only have your shit together, but you can also lift it and move it around, and it is universal. As I said in my note to Rory, if it doesn't work on the freeway, you don't have it. Once you achieve that place, to use the Hindu example, you know Maya when you see it, and it matters not where you drive your car -- no matter where you go, there you are ... (and thanks to Buckaroo Banzai ...)

If you can only be calm and collected in the monastery, then you aren't enlightened, you are only part-way there.

The number of people who achieve this plateau and who are walking around at any given time, is not large. Because you wear a robe and sit chanting for eight hours doesn't mean you have it. In fact, once you have gotten there, you can wear blue jeans and skip the chanting altogether. You don't need it any more. Once you win Powerball, you don't have to sweat trips to the grocery store.

Definitions and language -- they keep tripping us up ...

Here's Looking at You ...

Sergeant Pepper ... It's Really Deep, Man ...

At the end of the summer of 1967, just before Labor Day, the Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band hit the racks. I was working as a lifeguard at the ERA Country Club pool, and the other guards and I were Beatles fans, so we got it and brought it to work, to play on our record player. This was back in the 33-1/3 vinyl record days, you understand.

A concept album, which still a pretty new idea at the time, the record had a major impact on the burgeoning flower children. Grammy for best album, much debate about what the songs meant, and who all those people were on the cover. (For the record, the images were chosen by the fab four, and they couldn't get permission to use some they wanted. The list:

Aldous Huxley
Albert Einstein
Albert Stubbins
Alberto Vargas
Aleister Crowley
Aubrey Beardsley
Bob Dylan
Bobby Breen
Carl Gustav Jung
Diana Dors
Dion DiMucci
Dr. David Livingstone
Dylan Thomas
Edgar Allan Poe
Fred Astaire
George Bernard Shaw
George Harrison
Huntz Hall
H. G. Wells
H. C. Westermann
Issy Bonn
John Lennon
Johnny Weissmüller
Karl Marx
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Larry Bell
Lenny Bruce
Lewis Carroll
Mae West
Marilyn Monroe
Marlene Dietrich
Marlon Brando
Max Miller
Oliver Hardy
Oscar Wilde
Paul McCartney
Richard Lindner
Richard Merkin
Ringo Starr
Robert Peel
Shirley Temple
Simon Rodia
Sonny Liston
Sri Lahiri Mahasaya
Sri Mahavatar Babaji
Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
Sri Yukteswar Giri
Stan Laurel
Stephen Crane
Stuart Sutcliffe
Terry Southern
The Petty Girl of George Petty
Lawrence of Arabia
Tom Mix
Tommy Handley
Tony Curtis
Tyrone Power
Wallace Berman
William S. Burroughs
W. C. Fields

One of the Beatles biographies I read tells you which Beatle chose which image. Fascinating stuff.

Personally, I think Abbey Road is a much better album. The Pepper songs were not the best the band ever wrote, but had some memorable ones among them. One of which was Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and despite what Lennon said at the time so it would get air play, was not about his son's friend in school, or a picture the lad drew, but about what everybody thought it was about, an LSD trip. McCartney finally admitted that, three decades later. The BBC refused back then to play "drug" or "sex" songs, if they could recognize them. They blew it on The Velvet Underground's Take a Walk on the Wild Side, having no idea what "giving head" meant.
Or cross-dressing prostitution, for that ...

At the time, in that halcyon summer before the Summer of Love, the other guards and I listened to it, mightily impressed. And one of them, Danny, said, "Wow, this is really deep, man."

I agreed, but I wondered what he meant by saying that, so I asked him, "How you figure?"

And he said, "Because I don't understand it."

I had one of those come-to-realize moments -- it struck me that a lot of people would apply that measure -- if I don't understand it, then it must be deep. That we tend to assume we are smart and clever folk, and that things beyond our ken -- if they have any intrinsic meaning -- must be beyond the understanding of most people. Which would explain things like critics who go on and on about an impressionistic painting, pointing out what the artist is trying to do, and his understanding of color and composition and light, not realizing that the artist was a chimp given a paint set and a blank canvas ...

Sometimes what you don't understand is deep. Sometimes, it's because it rhymed with "Queen." And sometimes, it has no meaning at all ...