Tuesday, June 21st 2022
It’s a quarter to 8:00 and the storm is still brewing. It’s been brewing all night as far as I can see. I’m not sure if it ever rained but the wind has been blowing pretty hard all night and the sky has been cloudy.
I slept pretty well except for waking up at about 2:00 a.m. nothing particularly special and I was back to sleep pretty quickly. I’m still not hungry. I guess I don’t need to make this the most important thing in the world but it is kind of alarming. I’ve heard of people losing interest in food. I’m not really sure what causes it. It might be the food that I’m eating. If you take the factory food out of your diet, there’s probably a pretty good reason to not genuinely need to eat those three meals a day.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Not being hungry for a few days and missing a meal does not make me an expert on anything. But as a first thought, it might be that everything we have been taught about food has been altered by the food industries giving recommendations that eventually lead to more money coming from them. Not pure science unfortunately, sponsored science.
One of the things I came across as knowledge while studying diet through the lens of veganism was learning how many so-called “scientific studies” are sponsored by corporations hoping to get a scientific result. I probably do not need to elucidate this anymore, they say that good science is where you observe results and bad science is when you look for results you want.
In Canada I believe this year finally agreed that a vegan diet is probably the best way for a human being to live their lives. I’m working for my memory and without going back into it but I seem to remember reading that this was the first year where they took meat, milk and cheese off of the obligatory list to be included in a healthy diet. The recommendations called for more plant-based food. If you’re reading these words, check it out and let me know what you find.
Yeah, this is a very strange week for me. It seems as though something has snapped and I am finding myself in a very challenging place. If I want to think about what exactly is going on, I can think of a few factors all coming together to create a perfect storm.
I am a few weeks into not using any cooking oil. Other than a few seeds and nuts, this has removed most of the fat from my diet. This has definitely slowed me down a bit or perhaps better said, cleared me up. I don’t know how else to say it except that there are far less ups and downs in my mood. You get more pragmatic and less volatile. Let’s be fair, I live a pretty sedate life. I’m not out on the streets looking to punch people out and I don’t really engage in any sort of party-like activity to start with. I’m just saying that there are less nerves in play. Some people might call this boring. Boring is not really the word. It’s just a different texture and one with a lot less kinetic excitement.
It’s also been pretty hot. You can’t lie that hot weather melts you out. It’s also genuinely hotter than it should be. My personal feeling is that most people go through life pretty blind and do not really rely so much on their senses to get through life. They worry about their wallet much more than their environment. This means a bully through things rather than stopping to smell the roses or something like that. I have an opportunity to care very much about my environment and paying attention to the effects of global warming through statistics from weather history, how many times the weather bureau is off and my shrinking groundwater all tell me that climate deniers are dumbasses and probably contributory to this mess more times than not.
I could have a look environmentally speaking at the fact that we are at the solstice right now. The sun is at the Apex of its Dominion over us right here at the moment. Today and tomorrow are the most Sun that we get, overcast stormy days notwithstanding. We get the most light, the most vitamin d, the most melanin. It also means that the sun is starting to go away and most obviously, this moment is extremely important in the life cycle of all living things on this planet. Of course it’s backwards in the southern hemisphere but it’s still the same thing.
On a personal level, I did get to the end of two parasites from my life. Of course, I end up paying for these things. They got to be parasites in my life because they held power over me. Now, they no longer have power over me so they have naturally become much, much more insignificant. Parasites, financial parasites to be correct, have a very strong influence. Governments live off of this. Usually they create nervousness and unhappiness and in the case of financial parasites, they understand this and enjoy causing distress. The entire conservative politic of the world exactly lives off of this. The car business, building supply and grocery store supermarket businesses absolutely rely on this. It is the bastard child of globalization. It is the siphon that drains the tank of life.
It could just be pain. I really do need to have some kind of adjustment made. It is not available to me right now because of the bureaucracy of local socialized medicine. The absolute truth of why it’s not available is and is only our relationship to Russia. Russia has put the kibosh on all movement during the time of their oh-so-important religious war against Ukraine and it has been explained to me several times that all medical assistance in the realm that is important to me is deeply on hold because all roads go through Moscow. Fuck you very much again.
It could also be connected simply to coming to the end of my building set up for my property. Having the water systems in place and functioning and basically knowing that I’m going to have enough water to bring my garden in has taken a lot of anxiety out of my life. Simply knowing that I have availability of supplies, that I have transportation available to me and that the project has not ruined me financially all seem to allow a feeling of peaceful calm. I am a worrier. I was born into a violently hysterical family. This means worry is imprinted on you in a physical way either through violent words or violent actions. You get abused a lot because of what people worry about.
About where that comes from, it’s really not hard to figure out if you’re Jewish. The natural anti-semitism of Christianity and the Christian world seems intent on abusing Jews more than anything. Simply the fact that we are not Christian is enough to raise malice. You always kill things you don’t understand and of course competition seems to be all anybody wants. Therefore, it’s not hard to understand the history of the Jews and Jewish persecution as having a very large hand in why my family was so nervous and hysterical. If you know the rocks are going to come through the windows, you don’t really trust the glass very much.
I have certainly suffered my share of anti-semitism. One of the crazy differences though between myself and my family is that I got dropped off the bus many years ago and have made my own way without familial help. I do not rely on any of my so-called family members for anything and don’t really have any sort of speaking relationship with any of them either. This is as much self-preservation as anything. And if you want to know how I genuinely feel about this, please remember that I have a very long memory. I am much happier when I am not being attacked and I do not remember any relations with anyone I’m related to that have been easy and friendly or enjoyable. They go right for the pain and then they stay there. Why? Well, if you don’t get it by now, feel it in yourself and let me know what your opinion is. I’ll start with food and lifestyle and what has been forced into their DNA over millennia.
One final point could be that my ex partner is coming up on a vacation. I don’t automatically get all of her time. She is my ex partner lest we forget. She is going to travel to see her brother for a few days and then maybe she’ll come back and spend a little time in the garden. I don’t think she needs more than a day a week and I think she’s afraid of getting used to anything. She’s also probably afraid of us getting on each other’s nerves. We are both aware that we have our limits for each other’s company. I love her and I am extremely happy that we are friends. But like the wise person said, you have to know your limitations.
So barring that I’m actually sick, I seem to have run into a perfect storm. My appetite has gone away and I’m just not hungry right now. I just don’t want to eat.
I’ve been drinking water regularly. And again, please don’t scream at me for being completely reactionary. It’s just that I’m trying to verbalize how I feel. This is an extremely new thing for me. Truthfully, I have been eating as a hedge against anxiety and boredom, also a very anxious place to be, for my entire life. I was handed food as a substitute for everything by my rather copious hysterical mother. It has stayed with me forever and probably was the number one cause of my eventual diabetes. My mom may have been an intelligent person but she never spent 10 seconds studying human diet. Mom was simply a drug addict. Not street drugs per se. She had enough money to be isolated by houses and cars her whole life. But she never stopped smoking, would drink too much at social occasions and of course never stopped eating. Drug addiction. Thanks Mom.
So, maybe I’m making more of this than it’s worth. Maybe I’m going to get up from this machine and go make some breakfast. This is usually what I do about right now. Except I don’t think I’m going to today. I’m really just not hungry.
Of course, I have some obligatory food to eat. The salad box needs to be made use of. I don’t have the ability to save the spinach so at a minimum, I will have some fresh greens. Not a bad thing. And if I do start getting hungry, I still have plenty of potatoes, more than enough buckwheat, barley, brown rice and several other porridges lying around. I also have plenty of whole wheat flour and probably several hundred kilos of wild greens. If I actually want to eat, I have no need whatsoever to go to the market.
Once again, the trick of writing is that the act of writing itself slows down your thinking and intensifies your focus on the subject at hand. You think more deeply about things when you take the trouble to write them out and verbalize them. People who do not write, are definitely more emotional and reactive in their thinking. This is probably true for people who do other sorts of meditations. People who exercise regularly and religiously are probably calmer. And religious people who practice really probably get the same sense of calm. I think it’s good to be meditative and contemplative.
But as a practitioner of the meditative word, I think I just hit the nail on the head. I’m not hungry because I have enough to eat. I’m not hungry, because I have enough to eat and nobody is bothering me.
I could probably say that this is boredom. But I will tell you the truth. This time, I am not afraid of this moment. I’m not afraid of my thoughts. I’m not paranoid. I have been through all of the negative and hysterical thoughts concerning pretty much everyone and everything that could possibly create unhappiness in me many, many times. There’s nothing new. The threats don’t carry weight anymore.
I’m just not hungry. I just don’t need to eat right now. Cool. Let’s see what happens next.
***
I’m not sure if this is humor or not but the joke starts out, “Two Jews meet in Kiev…”
It’s hard to say what it means when Ben Stiller shows up for an interview with the president. Is this the current level of celebrity for the president of Ukraine? I understand that presence in the media is important. But somehow this moment is so confusing for me.
As a rather unfunny by-the-way to this story, I tried googling “two Jews meet and Kiev” hoping to find a couple of traditional Jewish jokes from the turn of the century. What I got was a more than somber history. You’re welcome to click on the above link. If you didn’t know about this stuff already, it might be enlightening. And if you did already know about this stuff, maybe you understand how I feel.
***
One small thought about water. We are not getting a great deal of rain now. Just a lot of wind. A few drops have fallen but not really enough to make a dent. It’s good to have plenty of water on hand.
I just checked in with the weather map for the region and I find that the first Frost is planned for something like the first week in November. Most likely, almost everything will be harvested from our garden beds in September and October. I might leave some carrots in the ground to stay fresh and possibly a few late cabbages can stay planted for the same reason. Most likely though, I’m not going to need to water the garden probably by mid September.
There are many theories about keeping everything hydrated but when the temperature drops into the low 40s Fahrenheit, single digits in Celsius, there is not really that much point to continue watering. There are other things to do to prepare for winter. Adding mulch or leaves or compost or even new soil can come in the late fall or early spring. But I can see now that the watering system that I’ve managed to put together is required in this region at best 5 months a year. Probably I need to have my tanks out from say the first of May to possibly mid-october.
It’s an interesting thought. I really hadn’t considered that I do not need to leave everything outside more than a few months a year. This will definitely add some life to the plastic barrels.
I don’t know why I’m mentioning this right now except that it’s funny to me. I’ve invested so much in thinking about this. I’ve invested so much in thinking about the efficiency of this house and what I can do to make it more effective as an instrument for life. It certainly feeds me and absolutely does not require very much money from me to maintain. It’s comfortable enough in its way and different places in the house are more comfortable during different parts of the year. And of course when the trees mature, there will be more shade and more birds and more food.
Maybe I’m just mentioning this because it’s good when you genuinely have a perspective on things. Very often we can’t see the forest for the trees. This means that we are so in the middle of something, we can’t see the big picture or even what causes the dilemma that we find ourselves in. I think most people, especially those who have a propensity for paranoia, find it very difficult to be constantly locked into a situation. Other people, perhaps corporate people who do not wish to come out of their protective shell, like the feeling of protectedness and insulation they feel.
I just like having perspective. I don’t like people who hide things from me. I don’t like being left in the dark and I do not like being played with. I like knowing the rules to the game before I play and I prefer to play fair games. I also prefer non-lethal contests. I definitely prefer non-lethal contests that are played for fun. I don’t really have a taste for gambling anymore. I lost that a very long time ago.
I guess what I’m saying is that it is nice to know that there will be an end to this. Maybe it’s a forever end or maybe just an annual ending connecting with an annual schedule that can be planned for. I don’t know.
All I know is we are right smack in the middle of the year right now. Right now is the solstice. After today and tomorrow, everything is going to start getting a little bit darker everyday. Regionally, it’s about 4 minutes a day. Ecologically and agriculturally speaking, every living thing that inhabits this lovely piece of ground I have will feel the stress and pressure. The flowers are all blooming right now, everything is producing seed right now, everything is becoming a little bit more desperate to live.
Can you feel this? Can I feel this? I don’t know. I understand the difference between fresh air and poison air. I know the difference between the sounds of nature and the sounds of man, especially gasoline powered instrumentation which is very loud and travels very long distances. I’m not even considering the sounds of gasoline-powered War. I’ve heard enough of those this year. It really would be nice if we would stop making it harder than it needs to be.
Maybe the real thought here is not particularly about anti-semitism or misogyny or any racism of any kind. Maybe it’s not about anything but meat. Maybe meat really is the bottom line evil of the planet. Maybe if human beings would drop this delusion and remove this incredibly harmful way of life from its vocabulary, the world would be able to find peace at last. And if the world was actually allowed to be for a moment, if human beings would stop destroying it and ourselves and everything around us in our perpetual ridiculous psychotic hunger, you might find that peace that each and every one of us crave. If we were to stop War and killing, maybe all of these ridiculous unsustainable and polluting constructions that we have devised for ourselves to placate our insanity would finally become completely unnecessary. Maybe all we ever really need for peace is simply to leave each other alone.
Please, stop killing. Just stop killing and let the world live in peace.
***
Just a quiet thought here about writing and writers.
I ended up making some breakfast. I had the usual green lentils, brown rice and field greens with some spices added to ground chickpeas to put some texture in the water. After breakfast, quite satisfied as you might imagine, I sat down to watch an episode of Star Trek. Why not?
The episode is from the first season and it’s called “the city on the edge of forever“. Briefly discussed, the plot began with an accidental overdose of some kind of stimulant that Dr McCoy gave himself. Turning into a complete paranoid psychopath, he beamed himself down onto a strange planet that for some reason had a time portal that could transport anyone to anywhere. Spock and Kirk beamed down to try and find him but could not prevent him from diving into the time portal. Doing so created a strange ripple in time and suddenly the USS Enterprise did not even exist. Kirk and Spock were obligated to go after him in the hope of stopping him from doing whatever it is he did that changed time irrevocably.
The key player was Miss Edith Keeler, a well-known pacifist and do-gooder running a flop house and soup kitchen during the depression in 1930. Without being a spoiler for a 55-year-old piece of literature, saving her life or letting her die seemed to be the event that was the key to the altered history/future.
What caught my attention was a terrific speech uttered by Edith Keeler, played as a veritable angel of endless Love by none other than Joan Collins.
EDITH: Now, let’s start by getting one thing straight. I’m not a do-gooder. If you’re a bum, if you can’t break off of the booze or whatever it is that makes you a bad risk, then get out. Now I don’t pretend to tell you how to find happiness and love when every day is just a struggle to survive, but I do insist that you do survive because the days and the years ahead are worth living for. One day soon man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom. Energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in some sort of spaceship. And the men that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future, and those are the days worth living for. Our deserts will bloom.
What got my attention was the beautiful writing here. Not only is this speech a lovely thought from 50 years ago, but it makes clear that the ideas that seem most important to me are not in any way new. In fact, I am quite positive that the writers and intellectuals of the world, the scientists and the mathematicians, have always known the truth about our planet and how unsustainably our species lives on it.
As to the explanation of why Keeler has to die in order to save the world, this comes a little bit later in a bit of dialogue between Spock and Kirk after Spock has cobbled together some kind of a temporal library style Google newspaper and magazine reader. It seems that there are two different possibilities for the future.
SPOCK: This is how history went after McCoy changed it. Here, in the late 1930s. A growing pacifist movement whose influence delayed the United States’ entry into the Second World War. While peace negotiations dragged on, Germany had time to complete its heavy-water experiments.
KIRK: Germany. Fascism. Hitler. They won the Second World War.
SPOCK: Because all this lets them develop the A-bomb first. There’s no mistake, Captain. Let me run it again. Edith Keeler. Founder of the peace movement.
KIRK: But she was right. Peace was the way.
SPOCK: She was right, but at the wrong time. With the A-bomb, and with their V2 rockets to carry them, Germany captured the world.
Sometimes when you get into things, you wind up going down really interesting rabbit holes. What drew me into copying that speech about the future and how it’s possible for men to get along together, let me rephrase that and say people getting along together, was the thought that I was interested to know who the writer was. This turned out to be the most interesting part of all of this.
The original screenplay was by Harlan Ellison.
Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018)[4] was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, described Ellison as “the only living organism I know whose natural habitat is hot water.”
His published works include more than 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays, essays, and a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. Some of his best-known works include the 1967 Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” (he subsequently wrote a book about the experience that includes his original screenplay), his A Boy and His Dog cycle, and his short stories “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” and “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman“. He was also editor and anthologist for Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). Ellison won numerous awards, including multiple Hugos, Nebulas, and Edgars.
The story has some nuance to it and what we see on screen, though exclusively credited to Ellison, the final teleplay was actually rewritten by D. C. Fontana and Gene L. Coon. The screenplay not surprisingly won an award for best screenplay and eventually led to Ellison writing the above mentioned book.
Why am I including this section? Because I completely relate to Harlan j Ellison. There’s nothing that I have read about him, his life of conflict, his basic disagreeableness and the absolute core beliefs that he had as a writer and an intellectual.
When McCoy, freed of his normal social restrictions by this unintentional overdose of future stimulant, the first thing he does is start accusing everyone around him of being murderers. Of course, we can call it paranoid delusion. We can also call it simple honesty. And if we transport him back directly into the middle of the Great depression, his words have even more meaning. Then plug into this the potential of a world run by fascism because a pacifist died before she had a chance to add her voice to the argument, you have pure genius. This is social satire at its finest. And if social satire is not the correct word, this is a social activist exhibiting awareness at its finest.
I understand the world simply wishes to remain entertained. I understand people do not wish to fall into deep thoughts. Discomforting thoughts drive us all to keep as hysterical as possible. But for one who does not mind this anymore, maybe we can give thanks to the writers and the idealists. Maybe it’s time we let these voices have a larger audience.
***
ok, wait, there is more to this.
I am a Star Trek fan but I am in no way an educated treky. I have never thrown my life into the minutiae of this nor have I seriously been a fan of any of the subsequent shows. But now, simply that this original script caught my eye, has me reading all about this particular episode. Firstly, it is seriously considered the best script they ever played but it is also seriously different from what Ellison originally wrote.
I’ve been trying to find a free copy of Ellison’s book about this experience. Both his original script and the modified script both won awards. But here in the comments section of Goodreads, I get at least a summary of the original text
Ellison’s original teleplay for the City on the Edge of Forever follows the opening essay/rant, and tells a dramatically different story from that portrayed on the screen. Oh, the basics are there — time travel, New York, Edith Keeler — but the motives and executions are different. Speaking of execution, that’s how in the original story Kirk and company came to the planet to begin with. They were looking for a desolate cinder on which they could summarily execute a crewman for murder, peddling drugs, interfering with the affairs of other cultures, and the unauthorized use of a transporter without additional personal present, as required by the Federation OSHA. (Okay, I’m kidding about that last one.) The notion of an Enterprise crewmember selling drugs to innocent third-world space people was too much for Roddenberry to tolerate, never mind that throughout the show other Federation personnel would prove morally flawed. Think of Captain Tracey from the Omega Glory, or the crazy psychologist whose Tracey’s actor also portrayed. In Ellison’s original and in the revisions, the drug-peddling fellow seeks escape from justice by entering the temporal vortex on the planet. Kirk and Spock realize that their dope-peddler has changed history somehow, and thus enter the portal to pursue the plot along familiar lines — until the end.
Wiki seconds this in discussing the initial pitch and outlines of the teleplay:
The first version introduced Lieutenant Richard Beckwith, who is sentenced to death after he kills a fellow crewman when he is threatened with the exposure of his involvement in the illegal drug trade. Ellison had included this element, since he expected the starship to be like any other military unit, having at least some unlawful people. Beckwith is then escorted to the surface of a nearby planet alongside Kirk, with Spock to carry out the execution by firing squad.
Wow. If this is the truth, I can see why they went ahead and made changes. I can also see why Ellison was generally seen as a very bitter man.
This brings to mind a story about myself about some criticism for some fiction I wrote last year. I wrote a story called The Night of the Long Knives and it is a story of a group of partisans getting ready to go off on what could possibly be a very deadly mission.
I got a call from a friend of mine just before the beginning of the war and he was very, very upset with me. He wanted to know how I had written this story or what I was thinking of when I did? He didn’t elucidate on everything he was talking about, he just told me that I was probably committing suicide by writing such things. He advised me that I might end up stateless or perhaps a political prisoner. He said that my writing about violence like this could serve no good.
I appreciated his taking an interest in me but in the end, the worst part of it was that he doesn’t seem to have read the story. Or perhaps he read the setup to the story but never got to the end. Kind of a shame. And so far so good as far as the political prisoner thing goes. I will let you know or stop letting you know should something go seriously wrong.
But then again, can you imagine what the Star Trek canon would be like now if there had been an episode where Kirk, Spock and McCoy all beamed down to a planet with the intention of going through with an execution? Could you imagine what history would have been like had there actually been mention of drug dealers working¹ on the Enterprise? Talk about changing the future! What the hell was Ellison thinking?
That’s just crazy.
***
Wow, today is turning out to be a good day. I just got notified by Amazon that I have royalty payments for my two books with them. How about that?
I don’t really think I’m going to be moving to a mansion anytime soon. My ecologist bone would not permit me to overpay just to heat and cool a big ass Barn.
Nevertheless, this means something. If you’re interested and you didn’t know about it, here is some advertising for the books in question.
And Being Had
Cheers!
***
Wow, today just keeps getting weirder and weirder but in a very, very good way:
Heritage Auctions, a US-based auction house, has sold Dmitry Muratov’s 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal for $103,5 million.
All proceeds will support UNICEF’s humanitarian response for Ukrainian refugee children and their families. The live stream of the final bidding was broadcast on Novaya Gazeta Europe’s Youtube channel.
“We have decided to help the victims of this war by giving away our most precious, most valuable property. So we have decided to auction this famous gold medal. It weighs quite a lot, to be honest. This medal is awarded to the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. All the money will go to the refugee children from Ukraine wherever they are now: in Europe, Ukraine, or Russia. This is the whole world’s responsibility to take care of them,” Muratov said.
The Norwegian Nobel Institute has approved this, its director Olav Njølstad said: “This generous act of humanitarianism is very much in the spirit of Alfred Nobel.
The book mentioned above, Found in the Translation, is exactly made up of my translations of independent journalist Tatiana Britskaya from Noviagasetta. In an oblique kind of way, I was a part of this team. And to answer all of the people who asked me if I got any money from winning the Nobel Prize, we now have a new answer: We donated it to a very good cause.
***
Okay, just a few sentences to close out the day. We got a little rain which was good. I took delivery of a Wi-Fi electrical bypass which will allow me to turn my pump on and off via my phone. Nothing new to the world but absolutely useful for me. Dinner had a lot of Greens in it and I think I found the cause of my stomach problems. Aspirin. My stomach doesn’t like the aspirin. Tomorrow I’m in town, I’m not sure the extent of my shopping trip but we’ll stay in budget. And I might have a secondary idea instead of fencing. We’ll see.
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