Greetings Great Grandchildren!

There was this one guy who decided to only be dumb on Saturdays…hey, I kid you not, this is no joke.  (I believe it all had something to do with that new cult who teach that you should put all your chickens in one basket.)

A Revolutionist who hears his mama, (or daddy), call him, has just gone AWOL.

That short, hairy ole sorehead passed me this note written on the back of a torn relative, it says, “It seems to me that the only things required to be a City philosopher are: a degree, a good memory, a decent haircut, and no personal ideas.”  (Close cover when striking.)

Those who feel the need to defend their intelligence, needn’t bother.

This one guy I told you about, the one who lurks about, oftimes lying beneath some bushes in the park, the same guy that sometimes whispers stuff to me, but who doesn’t want to be identified or quoted, well, here’s his latest bombshell, he says, (more or less just so he can’t accuse me of quoting): “All words have their motive and all motives have their drive, all drives their engines, and all engines have their spark, and so on, bon ami, and so, to all words I say, ‘Greetings, great-grandchildren’.”

There is no way to prepare for the Revolution, and no way not to.

J.

Secondary Activities

You can certainly put the verbal bad-rap on Secondary activities, but do know that therein lies mans’ only unique contributions.

As all city employees should know; irony comes with the territory.

Question:  Who invented “pissing in the wind”?

Answer:     Who invented the wind?

That which
is apparent
also appears
in other places.

In a pause in the middle of the flurry, this one centered chap said, regarding his sometimes erratic behavior, “Well, I guess it’s the price you pay for being me.”  And none of his friends saw fit to point out that they indeed were not him…(but, then again, neither is he in alternate Octobers.)

J.

The Moon as Metaphor

One brother was berating another over his hoarding of newspapers, “No one’s interested in yesterday’s news.”  A passing subversive heard him and repeated it to himself and thought, “No one’s interested in yesterday’s news…no one’s interested in yesterday’s news…you know, no one in the City’s got any room to say that.”

Playing with words can be like playing with infinity…(of course, this all depends on how you verbally play with the word “infinity.”)

Over near a wine tre, I encountered a guy who looked at me, looked away, then looked back at me…then looked away again…then looked back at me and finally said, “I’ve generally been able to bear up reasonably well under the strain and uncertainty of mortal life, but what still gives moi nightmares is to think of the day when fear does pull up, comes to a complete stop, and dismounts”…(he looked away again.)

The phases of the moon can be seen as a metaphor for the phases of the moon.

On the back of the ticket it said, “The price of admission to the ‘Weekend Escape At The Super Holy Vineyard And Monastery’ includes all food, drinks and bullets.”

J.

Flirting with the Local

Would mice still want to be rats, if draft exemptions were based on shoe size?

Unpublished Revolutionist Rule, (or maybe just a hint), Number 17 Y:

You know you’re on the right track when you ain’t got no track.

You can flirt with the local,

but the universal is beyond seduction.

(Hill-side translation:  You can’t lay Life.)

This one bonny chap would quite often conclude a statement by adding, “Of course, that’s just one chap’s opinion,” until one semi-fine day he pulled his shorts up short and thought, “Why hell, that’s quite enough of an opinion – I’m just one man.”

Under the weight of local gravity, there is really no proper question of whether, “the means justify the ends,” in as much as the means ARE the ends…(and vice versa on Fridays).

In the dirt, at one possibly abandoned revolutionist camp, was scratched the following, “This stuff is so powerful, it’s damn near non-existent.”

J.

In the New World...

Subversive Bulletin Number 147 Dash Six Three R:

It is now clearly established and recognized that the only instrumentality to ever comment on the mind’s “amazingly complex and inscrutable nature” is the mind.  Operate accordingly.

Irony is inescapable in a circuitous world…(or a circumcision ward).

Over on the Fern Planet, in a local pub, I heard this one fellow ask his embibling mate, “If there does turn out to be a ‘Judgment Day,’ do you think god will actually look back over your entire life, or just review the highlights?”

In the new world,
there’s no such thing
as an absent-minded genius.

From the midst-of-it-all, (and you damn well know which midst I mean), a voice arose,

“I sometimes do not feel much like praising and paying homage to the gods; at times it seems they are only looking out after themselves.”  And a second tongue replied, “Well hell, why do you think they’re gods in the first place?”

One guy, (who could have been potentially subversive – who knows), after being persistently pestered to give his opinion on some matter or other, finally said, “I’m not into comment.”

J.

We're All Yes-Men

A power structure with a motto is like one shoe, but with a double shine.

When you get right down to it,

other than death – talk is everything.

Liquid graffiti found on a City wall: “We’re all ‘yes-men’ and yes, that includes those who say no.”

Another one of those local soreheads says that he now believes that stupidity is some people’s attempt to “beat up their environment.”

A medium has no innate ability to understand its messages, unless it is also their origin.

(Any who might still think themselves the author of their words and passions, may quietly float from the room.)

J.

Uncertainty Surrounds Anything Alive

At the Primary level is the morality of hunger;
At the Secondary is the ethics of reputation.

A kind of gross,
A kind of subtle,
Uncertainty
surrounds
anything alive.

All crooks and politicians have fun.

Under nominal conditions, many Revolutionists – even land-locked ones – might give their occupation as, “deck hand.”

One of the joys of local history is the emergence of revealing patterns in light of hindsight.  (And from a band of hearty City thinkers comes the cry, “Hey, everything looks better from back here!”)

J.

A Man with a Fried Egg on a Monday

The new ole sorehead just down the block, told a neighbor’s dog, that anyone who writes their autobiography and then seriously awaits a response thereto, should be laughed at, distempered or shot.

Household Hints For Those Who’ve Had Hold Of Several Households:

Always read the instructions,
handle all solvents with care,
and never stand up.

A man with a fried egg,
can afford to be brave.

The dominant will always offer to protect the submissive, even when the only threat is from the dominant.  (There are insufficient local words and symbols to adequately express my appreciation for the scales of justice.)

A man, lame in both legs, and quite deliciously vocal in his complaints, after regaining the use of one, referred to change as, “Illusionary progress,” and added that at least it was still preferable to real progress.

The Revolution is expanding when the person next to you becomes awarethat he’s now in it.

J.

Why Resist the New?

Overheard Comment Number Two Thousand Six Hundred and Something-Or-Other:

“Hey, you can bad-mouth ‘em all you want to, but just remember, without local conditions there wouldn’t be any local.”

Near an abandoned campfire, just upon that east ridge, a scrap of paper was recently found which said, “The secret is to act like you actually know what you’re…”  (The note was unfortunately torn just there.)

Why resist the new? It’ll just run over you anyway.

Any story without an internal point of “self reference” is a tale hardly worth telling, much less remembering, forgetting, or otherwise folding and consuming.

Continuing
the charade,
is part of
the charade.

Only two classes of people properly believe in the duality of reality: those under five foot nine and those taller.

J.

Nothing to Say

One ole curmudgeon, (a sorehead with a degree), said that after a lifetime of study, scrutiny and contemplation, he was finally convinced of one thing, and one clear thing only – that there is nothing to say, just nothing to say.  (But he doesn’t want to be the one to point it out.)

On local levels, there is a repeated anticipation of victory, (which nicely substitutes for same)..

I heard one fellow on your planet say that, “Even though happiness is weird,” he still had to prefer it over sadness, which he says is, “Far too messy and complex.”

If local authorities must authorize, license or otherwise sanction your exercise of your art, then your art is but a commercial trade, and no matter who pays your wages, you work and support the local conditions.  (Oh well, I don’t suppose any of you have the heart, if not the interest, to consider any internal utility of this info?  No, well at the very least you might be a mite more selective regarding who you work for, even if you’re self employed.)

The Revolution has no middle, no second act, save for the rebellious actors themselves.

J.

Roman a clef

Everyone’s life is a,

  Roman a clef.

Part of the critic’s job is to make secondary human activities seem to be more than they are…(and sometimes less.)

From local views, it seems a flood is always impending.

The perfection
of anything,
is a job for the
Medical Examiner.

One brother said, “Without anticipation, life wouldn’t be crap.”  After a preemptory pause he did see fit to add, “Wellllll, it’d be just like it is now, whatever that is.”

If you go really out of town, a lot of the old stuff sure does look silly.

J.

The Surface May Be Deeper

The beginnings and endings of ordinary affairs could be, at best, painted as grey, and light grey, while the maneuvers in the middle hold the full color palette.

The nearest there might be to a form of “pure evil,” would be if some, any, local conditions, could become permanent or universal.

Might I suggest to you,
May I perhaps hint,
That maybe,
just maybe,
To say the very least,
The surface may be
deeper than
normally thought.

A kid asked his father, “What is death?” and the ole man replied, “Well, it’s the completion of the past, or at least of one past.”  They both kicked up a little dirt in silence for a while, and the father added, “Or, you could say, death’s when the past, or your past, catches up with you.”

The Revolution is sorta like a new level of the Primary.

J.

Middle Ground

Local ears hear jazz and complain, “Where’s the melody?  Where’s the familiar?”

Under true and useful “hostile conditions,” the Revolutionist should know that if he sees a “middle ground,” he is experiencing a mirage.

Some can realize the conspiracy between all dancers, the collusion twixt audience and actors, but can you grab-a-peek at the nebulous nexus that binds the local and universal?

I think that I shall never see:
A poem lovely as a knee,
A link ‘tween thighs and toes below,
A bridge that follows the rivers’s flow.

Could we not now have a moment of reverence for those things that move while remaining, and stay whilst departing, but only do so when you remember, or forget to watch.

One more-than-adult sorehead, standing by his own father’s grave, rubbing together his hands, was overheard to intone, “Based on the way things have gone thus far, I can hardly wait to get really old so that without conditions and with no restraints or exceptions, I can be thoroughly wholly and sublimely pissed.”

Most books aren’t written for any particular purpose, and that’s why publishers must get someone to write an introduction for them all to say otherwise.

J.

Two Eyes

Training and education are local, Secondary versions of a new level, Primary intelligence.

The Revolution
never starts.

In some world, (mostly internal), a man who can write axioms can write his own ticket.

Two eyes always have a paradoxical look.

The purpose of the Revolution is not the overthrow of power, nor a change in direction; the true intent of this kind of revolution is simply that the Revolution always continue.

J.

Local Conditions 2

All Localized descriptiosn impose Localized restrictions, and are disadvantageous to a Universal view.

(Earlier times still exist.)

The Rules of the Revolution are always changing.

In ordinary life, a man is not an operational actor in a scene until his peers and environment acknowledge and him as such.  There is no such soothing luck in the Revolution; there are no titles, no established positions, or ranks.  And not only does your ordinary environment not know there is a revolution under way, they certainly do not recognize you as a participant.  (If you wanna’ get right downright down, dirty and gritty, you could surmise that the way to tell if you’re a real, real, REAL Revolutionist, is that no one, (outside of camp), knows you are one, but you…and of course, that no one knows you know but you.)

All achievements are dead.

J.

Local Conditions

Those who don’t “learn from the past,” can then perhaps learn from some place more relevant.

Only the Revolutionist sees the past as unfinished, and the future as its proper reflection.

Under local conditions, many people who can think, begin to think they’re Noah.

If the Revolution had a predictable outcome, it would not be the Revolution.

Local conditions are only serious to the locals…

J.

Improvised

To be, “put to use,”
Be close to being, “put to death”.

“Okay, sergeant, hand out the larger weapons to the men without pillows.”

There was this one king who gave each of his offspring names that no one in the kingdom could pronounce.  (In some further times, at different junctures, this would, by itself, qualify one for inclusion in the “Father Of The Century Contest”.)

In an apparent attempt at some sort of self liberation, this one chap put on his best suit, oiled and brushed his hair, then confronted himself in a full length mirror and announced, “From here onward – do as you’re told, but think as you want.”  (After the obligatory double cheek kiss, handshake and salute, he was dismissed to carry on his normal duties.)

Most real good revolutionist information is improvised.

J.

Contrived, Controlled Crisis

One traveling thinker told his stay-at-home-son, “Almost all streets in three dimensional settings are one way; thus, guilt has no guilt.”  (He confided to me later that, just in case this message didn’t produce the desired effect, he has left instructions for a card to be sent to his son on the offspring’s nineteenth birthday telling him to “chill out.”)

If our speech did not reflect our correct chemistry, we’d all be on spring break.

At times of real stagnation, there’s always the gambit of the, “Contrived, Controlled Crisis.”

Yesterday I received a letter from a fellow on a not too distant world, who told me that some time back he had taken my idea of “fake it ‘til you make it” so much to heart that only recently had he realized that he was no longer operationally aware of his fakery, to quote him, “I can’t tell any more whether I’m actually faking it or not.”  (Now, now, sir, no need to thank me.)

The Revolutionist doesn’t hate the opposition, the established powers, but is in eternal resistance to local conditions – whatever they are – in him.

“Ah,” spake the poet, “There is this one land wherein ‘tis only after action has commenced, that a purpose is placed thereon.”  And his Falstaff replied, “Ah, what a strange kingdom that must be, me lord.”  And the liege agreed, “How strange indeed.”  (I fell wont to tell you that I am not all that convinced of the sincerity of the bard’s final comment…I did want to get this in since it is directly tied to my original purpose in bringing you the brief scene.)

J.

That Which the Tongue Creates...

The speaker declaimed, “Tis’ hard to be old and be an optimist.”  And from the crowd came a response, “Hell, it’s hard to be old.”  The speaker clapped his hands together, gave a little leap and shouted, “I rest my case!”

That which the tongue creates, can by the tongue be destroyed.

All things
that can grow,
will grow.

A guy asked me to pass this along, says he, “Anything you gotta talk about, other than this, ain’t worth the fucking effort.”  (I’ve been sitting on this until a slow news day.)

An ordinary city dweller once asked an Intellectual Revolutionist how long this kinda stuff had been going on, and the subversive replied, “I don’t know, and if I did I’d probably lose all interest.”

J.

It's Obvious

The message from one thinker on, (I’m sure you’ll be glad to know), another planet, asks me to relay to you the following:  “It can be a great relief to realize that absolutely no one knows what they’re talking about, and that it makes not the slightest bit of difference to anyone.”  (Is there an unconditional certainty that I should be passing along messages such as this?)

There is much more
to the obvious
than is obvious.

The harm we do ourselves is not the real harm done.

I never told anyone this, (and I still may not), but I once had a real upset fellow tell me that as far as he was concerned, this kinda stuff was “just getting someone else to think for you.”

Those who don’t talk about their troubles, don’t have no troubles.

J.