Dear Friends,

Tonight's little visual ditty from a public domain image: "Metropolis", 1927.

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

S

My Electric Lady…

Dear Friends,

This evening's little doodle from some public domain art of unknown origin. It's pretty raggedy, as am I as I prepare to careen into slumber and dreams.

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

S

And yet again…

Dear Friends,

They came again to my fevered dreams. Strange but familiar.

Hic Finis Est

S

A Visitor in Dreams…

Dear Friends,

A visitor arrived in dreams last night. It did not speak, but behind my eyelids, between my ears, somewhere in the vicinity of my brain's Hippocampus, there was a buzzing. It slowly resolved into music and emotions unspoken. I cannot recall what it all meant.

Hic Finis Est,

S

More Visual Noodling…

Dear Friends,

Here is another bit of noodling with a public domain image from perhaps the finest piece of silent film plucked out of a genre that was just being first explored in cinema back in the 1920s.

SCS ©

Another Old Buddy…

Dear Friends,

Another old buddy stopped by.

He is considered quite a looker on his Home World.

©SCS

My Rescue!

Dear Friends,

A recent transmission from my Home World. I am being hailed to stand by for further instructions.

I Remains Yours in Infradibity,

SCS

More Whimsey From Across the Heavens

Dear Friends,

This little bit of fiddling from a public domain image continues a recent theme. Look to the sky. Be bewildered and question. Why have THEY not yet arrived, or have they? Are they too small to see? Do THEY live in a timeframe out of our own?

Is a moment to we Humans comparable to eons for such creatures. Perhaps they are in no hurry to deal with such an infant civilization as our own. Perhaps they know that we are trouble brewing for them, and want to stay hidden. Perhaps THEY are so big that we actually live inside their beings, as bacteria and viri live in our own Human bodies. There are so many possibilities. The questions are fascinating.

Hic Finis Est,

SCS

The Mother Ship!!!

Dear Friends,

The Mother Ship has now arrived! Thus, now is a good day to be alive, my Comrades and we rejoice. Spill  down your gullets the Philuphian Ale and feast on the roasted loins of the Barsoomer Galumpher. So, ho-ho, we are off to the Home World, Adelphious.

One problems, however. We need with the getting to Luna, Moon of Earth. Some small imprecision in planning and trajectory by Central Command and the Mother Ship is a quarter million miles away on a cold or hot (depends on the sun), barren lump of stones. Fermenshup, can you get that old Apollo spaceship out of the Smithsonian? Grummphtr, we need a rocket. Off to Huntsville for you! Bring pliers and bolt cutters. The Pink Stalk Walkers have their damn giant bomb tied down like somebody was going to steal it from the freakin' lawn. Whatever. Let's get a move on!!!

In Hasty Departure, I Remain Yours,

SCS

More Digital Manipulation…

Dear Friends,

Another manipulation of a Public Domain photo of one of the most terrifying heroes of my childhood. Can you guess who this fellow is?

I remain yours, as always, with one foot into The Twilight Zone,

SCS ©2013

Doctor Jekyll in His Laboratory…

Dear Friends,

Another doodle on a public domain image…

SCS ©2013

Almost Human?

Dear Friends,

Another visitor from our Fever Dreams.

SCS  ©2013

Have you seen this individual? Please contact the Authorities.

Dear Friends,

Another bit of borrowed nonsense stolen from years ago and filtered through imagination and digits.

SCS

Guys…

Dear Friends,

In cleaning out my digital desk drawer I ran across these recent posts to G+ and Facebook over the past week. They are disconnected but also sort of thematically related, or at least similar in tone. I have taken some care to edit and expand them where required.

This first post is in response to a lady’s opinion about males and their worthiness for affection and admiration. She was talking about actors on the silver screen.

I'm pretty sure that there are only two guys that most guys with any sense of being a good guy, but a real guy, that any guy would emulate… Sean Connery and Carey Grant. I think that Grant takes top honors. Thanks for the lessons in guyness, Archie! Oh, Gary Cooper also makes the list. Almost forgot him.

Next, I stumbled back over this post in response to a fellow who felt he’d taken as much guff as women take online for the being male or female. I’ve had my share of bad weirdness in conversations between the sexes, but have not noticed that women are as apt to be as rude and domineering as men online. I felt that the guy that I responded to was whining and just plain wrong.

I've sort'a sat on this topic for a bit, but have to respond to K. Our male shoulders are wider, our voices are deeper and we've got the leverage in both the physical and social arena as males. I'm sporting a couple of nice scars and a broken thumb from dealing with crank-drenched freak trying to rape a little woman and then kill me. Fine. Let the women hurl angry words at you along with the spice of shame. I think they've earned a certain privilege in that arena. It's what little leverage they typically have where it comes to male to female confrontation amongst us big brained naked Great Apes. Let them have at it while we try to listen to the message behind the sputtering anger. Screw it. I'd rather sleep safe in the arms of an angry lady that might forgive me when the sun comes up than sleep alone and lonely.

Then the topic of our inborn natures as men, women and individuals popped up in another to and fro.

I think I was born under a bad sign and marked from the day that I was born. Still, we are very plastic in our natures and proclivities. I was blessed with clever, tolerant parents and thus was nurtured to live beyond that selfish, mean spirited, puking and pooping being that I was created. I somehow became a more tolerable individual. I, at 57 years old, have not pooped in my diapers in months, seldom vomit on my bib, do not (sometimes to the dismay of my spouse) fondle a woman's breast at every opportunity, and I'll actually share with others (if there's something in it for me). Now, I was born with an apparently innate understanding of gambling. That is why I seldom play games.

You don't gamble without controlling the odds and never, ever, under any circumstances at any time bet against yourself. I haven't been in but two physical altercations and have the busted nose and a fancy scar above my left eye to show for that. So, I stay out of fights other than verbal jousts where the dignity of a female that I am trying to woo is at peril.

Okay, so the last time I did so, I got that fancy scar and a concussion and the girl left me on the pavement as she moved on with the other guy. Right. Whatever. I still do lie when I have to. "No, Officer, I do not recognize anybody in this line up. May I go before you let that big guy with the Ace Bandage® on his hand out of his cage?" Yes. This watch was a gift from my grandmother and I have an alibi. You can't prove anything. Um, can you spare a couple of bucks, maybe five until I get to the, uh, money machine? I'm good for it. Really. Okay. Two bucks?

Thence I moved on to physics and lawyers and experimental space craft hidden in secret bunkers under a mountain in correspondence with the same woman as the post before. She has now really provoked my imagination, though not in the way you are likely imagining.

Well, Ms Smarty Pants, if that's your real name, I know some people who know some people who probably know your people but my people's people have their own UFOs and their own ray guns. Why, one of them youfoes is hovering right along side my castle floating in the sky at this very moment in time. So, just watch yer step, Missy. You don't want to tangle with a passel of lawyers from The Secret World who are so hungry that they'll work for $2.83/hr.

Those seven legged buzzards in bad suits, brief cases over stuffed with briefs (incontinence is a typical challenge for deep space/near-luminal travels in anti-gravity vessels) know something about something and they'll tell you what! Oh, crap!!! I think I just hit the button for the Chemtrail Evacuators instead of the Space/Time Dilator. Dang! I'm stretching into an infinitely long line drawn from an infinitesimally small point in the future, present and past. Okay. Okay. It's all perpendicular from here. I'll be fine.

Somewhat back on track, the conversation turns to a mutually admired old fellow, a fine player of the mandolin. His name is Grisman and he is a good man. He is certainly no Grant, Connery nor Cooper. He’s actually pretty homely. But, he does know well how to make the women smile and swirl. Thus, I shall add him to my honor roll of guys who know how to work their racket and do it right. I wrote this after listening to some of the fine old-timey tunes that he created new but sounds like they’d always been with us. That is a rare talent that few along the line are capable of. There was Garcia, Robert Hunter and just a few others that came up out of the fifties to make brand new old music. Of those, only Hunter and Grisman remain to stomp this tera in their considered way.

Yeah. I figure most of us earn every sparkle of silver and each scar as we shuffle on. Still, dang, that Grisman fellah can still play a good game of "Catch Me if You Can" on his little music box. The notes drizzle sugar water and flower petals here and then gone into silence. He gets done with them and then they only exist 'tween our ears. In that way, it's a simple project that he has undertaken for goin' on six decades. Yup, the guy seems to have figured out why he was put here on our pale blue dot that spins like a dust mote in the vastiness of Eternity.

So, that’s it. My digital drawer is all cleaned out for this week.

Hic Finis Est,

SCS

Dear Friends,

I’m trying a little experiment in self publishing an eBook as a PDF viewable on any mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop web browser. Anyhow, here’s the deal. See the following rundown of the book, a short novel of about ninety pages in print that mashes together hard science fiction with fantasy and mythology. If the following description intrigues you, ask for a digital copy and send your email address. If you get a giggle or perhaps a little insight from it, USPS a check to the address below for the amount of $8.99 or whatever you deem appropriate.

It’s the gleeful story is set in a gloom-benighted future where Earth is a dimly remembered myth, now a sterilized cinder reeling out of a most distant spiral arm of its home galaxy. In this present, Humanity is no more that a collection of cultured genes amalgamated with those of other species; they no more than weeds, melded to components of nano-machines and synthetic life-forms. Our hero, if you can call him that, is a haploid male born of no mother. His name is Saurian LUX. Saurian is a contraband runner caught up in a conspiracy that will either destroy or rescue the galaxy in the face of a perhaps implacable force known as The Flux.

Saurian’s love interest, APES2CB, possesses exceptional emotional intelligence and physical dexterity, as well as photosynthetic, glistening skin. She has several irises in her engineered eyes and can see her lover’s heart beat as well as exploding gamma ray bursts in the great heavens. She is likely doomed. The two are made for adventure and born for trouble.

Yes, the plot is also full of booby hatches in time and space providing for unlimited sequels, prequels, a movie franchise, television series and video games.

I am at S. Solomon, 20 Hampton Ave, Suite #315, Northampton, MA, 01060. My email is ssolxy@gmail.com. Just ask and you’ll find that PDF in your in box.

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

SCS

Compulsive Writing?

Dear Friends,

I’ve been thinking a bit about my compulsive writing. If I didn’t write each day, I think I could not understand myself nor others. I might be diagnosed as somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Whatever.

My incessant writing is something like self-therapy. It puts into play feedback loops from my external world of experience and my internal world of desires and imagination. There are loops in loops in the process of writing; basic neurology. They strengthen and inform each other and drop their output into my mind and those of others at the end of the production line that vanishes yet continually reappears at the dawn.

It is also an escape from the external world. For some moments at a time I dwell only in my mind and some precious notions delivered by other writers. I find rhymes in my mind that syncopate with experience. My thoughts dance. I know something that I had not imagined before. Words bring those notions to form and my synapses and dendrites swirl with them.

Writing is also a meditation. I can go into the Sanctum Sanctorum within my skull.

Writing is a discipline that requires concentration; a commodity much undervalued in this world. Focus is a blessing and a curse, but there it is.

Writing is the Dragon in the Dark Cave. Head on in. That Dragon favors a writer not as a meal but a companion well equipped to tell a bed time story.

Hic Finis Est,

SCS

The Future is Now!

Dear Friends,

I present to you at no charge an exclusive look into the recent past, our present and near future as it may be. I am no mind reader nor savant of any kind. I cannot reliably prognosticate nor see into the future. I just read the writing writ upon the mists of Time as the river flows by.

Since the simultaneous rise of electronic computing, advances in modern prosthetics, medicine, surgery and brain science it has been a recently realizable dream to meld Human with machine. You encounter the present result each day when you notice an individual with a small neural implant on the back of his skull attached to a microphone in his ear. That part looks like a hearing aid. The implant’s interface to his brain looks like he’s pasted a quarter-sized piece of Silly Putty® to the left rear of his head, just above the hairline. He is a deaf person given the chosen gift of hearing by technology. He is a Cyborg; a Man Machine.

He is not alone. Today you are starting to see folks with funny looking glasses. They are blind but they can see by means of machine vision that communicates through digital to analog pulses to their Visual Cortex. It doesn’t work all that well yet, but it hold the promise of much better performance. Why settle for normal Human vision when you could toggle a switch to see like a butterfly or bee, see into the radio spectrum or perceive a night sky full of Gamma Ray Bursters making the best fireworks you could hope for?

Meanwhile, a lady in a wheelchair, a paraplegic, took the first sip of orange juice she’d had in thirty years without the help of an aide whom she communicated with only by blinking her eyes. She recently simply thought about having that beverage and a computer wired into her head told a disembodied robotic arm on a rolling table by her bed to give her some refreshment. It obeyed. She controlled a machine that, albeit temporarily, was part of her. She did it by wishing for a drink. That simple.

Well, it wasn’t really that simple. To get to this point of modest Human/Machine integration, a code had to be cracked. It’s the toughest code we know of this side of >Why and How Does Anything Exist?<. The code I refer to is the code of our most basic cerebral and sub-cerebral nervous functioning. It is the code clacking, gurgling and ticking behind our every physical and verbal expression, our very thoughts, both conscious and unconscious. A machine with such capacity would truly be a Mind Reader. Such machines have already been demonstrated in prototype to construct the words that a person is thinking and shine digital images of their visual imagination on fluorescing screens.

Flash forward to 2016. The United States unveils the federally mandated Mind Meters® to be installed in every airport, every ATM, every 7-11 and intersection where there is a stop light. Citizens can no longer get to the curb from the cab without having their minds scanned.

What sort of problems will pop up when brain scanners are perfected and installed on every corner. How will my nation’s economy and social fabric be ravaged as millions of folks from all walks of life leave their jobs to take online courses so that they might qualify as a Homeland Security Mind Readers and thus be able read the rampant pornographic thoughts of airline passengers and all the folks at banks or just walking down Main Street during lunch hour?

Surgeons will leave anesthetized patients in mid-appendectomy on the operating table. Lawyers and real estate speculators will leave money on the proverbial table to lunge at this new opportunity. The food service industry will become bereft of illegal immigrants working the dish washers as they flock toward the opportunity to find out what other illegal immigrants are really thinking about that skinny girl in the summer dress. “Is it what am I thinking or even dirtier?” Grandmothers will abandon their charges in bassinets to examine the secret thoughts of those swarthy fellows with their Mind Meters® as they also mine the imaginations of the very proper business man visualizing a lady’s underwear as she in turn tunes in a “suspect” for a reading of his response to another’s response to the response of another grooving to the spike heels of that “looker” as he ponders what’s on top of those long legs and her girlfriend monitors the entire situation. Teachers will ignore their classes while staring out the window to relentlessly scan the visual imaginations of folks on the town’s streets for signs of secret assignations underway while the kiddies are doodling on the margins of forty year old text books.

The economy will collapse, as will our culture, in a heaving sigh of an infinite loop consuming its own tail. No real work will get done. Children will be left unfed, ill educated and unattended. Every aspect of our civic life will be corroded. Commerce will sputter and belch and eventually swoon in a faint like a Victorian lady mortified that her bloomers were showing at the grand ball.

Oh, that has already happened. We don’t have to wait for 2016 and the perfection of Mind Meters®.

Hic Finis Est,

SCS

Coming Soon…

Dear Friends,

Coming soon to an electronic bookshelf near you…

©SCS

Simple Toys for Simple Minds…

Dear Friends,

Finally got around to some goofiness with my MacBook Air's FaceTime camera and Photo Booth. Simple toys for simple minds…

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

SCS