#programming space rods and cones

[popculturealchemy]

The more you rely on tools. . the less you rely on the tools that were given to you . . . . the carpenter . theos . lesbian poet . . tool of coagulating . . liquid . . . Into thoughts you can kind of control.. . . working together . .. . perfecting this union of alchemy on this island . . . not knowing war yet . . waters undisturbed . . . chaotic waters . . . tons of feelers observed . . . bumpy gravel . . . timid waters . . tepid waters .

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In the begining waters

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wispering waters

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Islands emerge

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lets exist there

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lets name ourselves wilson

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replace you

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you

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are given name

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were so close

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[theremainingwords]

These Writers

These writers have a different bone in them, not a funny bone, nor a wish bone, more of a feeling bone. A mineralized tissue that gives them some heightened sense of awarness, some connection to everything in their aethear no matter how minute. Things that the rest of us overlook, things we don’t see or hear or smell. It’s not that we have made some decision to ignore these details they just simply don’t exist, they are absorbed as part of larger picture, a feeling an emotion that we chose to indulge rather than dissect, to try and understand.

We all recall the magic of a first kiss although most of us settle to be moved into a warm smile from a few gossamer vignettes and dusty butterflies although these writers recall how autumns silver moon was waxing, how her floral auburn hair laid languid on the shoulders of the borrowed sweater of her sister and how hopeless promises were whispered over trembling lips. Yeah these writers are a different bunch yet its this bone, this sense that is never more acute when they are in love or in the golden glow of intimacy.

They met innocently enough. Like the highs and lows on the tide of a new moon sometimes these writers exhaust themselves. The same way the bays and marshes flood in earnest they too are drained wholly. They need to find a way to replenish, to restock. In some fashion they immerse themselves in creative things, in order to find inspiration. Some read, some paint, some escape to the woods or the sea, he always enjoyed the performing arts. When his words finally bored him, felt one dimensional, he would seek out these charming little actors guilds and hatbox theater productions. He always was amazed at the transformation from gym teacher to Hamlet or grocery clerk, banker to Estragon or Scrooge. She was part of such an ensemble.

It was a Saturday matinee, the moon was waning and it was late summer. He found himself in the back of a small chapel turned playhouse with a dozen or so parents and suporters and friends, some with a single flower anxious for a small town bravo. She sat patiently at the back of the makeshift stage with a few other actors, crimson hair the only thing more distracting than her eyes. As he took in the set and its hand painted backdrop and borrowed costumes and dusty props their eyes seem to meet more often than not. Was she in character rehearsing lines in her head and looking right through him or was there some sudden captivation as if they were both seeing fireflies for the first time? It wasnt until he looked down at the little program filled with greyscale ads for gas stations and diners and churches being nervously and capricously twisted and rolled that he realized this was tangible.

The production slowly dissolved into his fascination with her smiles, the way she emoted about the worn wood floor and the anticipation of her next bit part. Before long he was brought back into himself with sudden applause and bows and the tossing of roadstand roses. He stood and applauded although he heard no sound, he could not take his eyes off her. There were rounds of applause for the perfomers and the audience and the venue and then some announcements about upcoming performances and invitations to meet the cast, his interest brusquely piqued. He had to talk with her, learn her name, anything. 

They would share dinner weeks later, they discussed movies and books and plays and aspirations and first kisses and promises made in the dark. They fell into this silver kind of love that was as innocent and as complicated as that. It was one of these nights that this passion finally eroded all of their inhibitions, giggles turned serious and soft kisses filled spines with mercury.

This is where these writers are at home, all of this watching and listening and learning finally shines. As it is in writing it is in intimacy, a writer is only as good as he has felt and can make others feel. There is a connection that forms between writer and reader, something invisible. He found himself in and out of his story as he kissed her, leaving a silver trail of pecks ands piques. It was the most intimate of these things that he adored, eroding insecurities and unraveling fears. Anyone could take. That was easy. Lazy. He never understood the notion. The selfishness involved. It was never about self to him. He knew himself and it bored him. He wanted to learn about her. So he would find her. He sought those places where she came apart. Cleaved. And by now she was anxious to be understood. She offered up her story in reckless fashion and he devoured her. 

He timed his pressure with her breathing as if she was reading to him, telling her story. Her hips reading aloud, acting out these parts, these scenes the way she rehearsed on stage. He gazed up from his vantage beneath her and took a viusal deep breath. Closing his eyes he was never more acute, finding himself in tune. His head took him to all the lovers that she had flippantly dismissed at dinner. He knew there was a seriousness in each one of them that she would never admit. He was desperate to learn from them, in this moment it was the only way to overcome, to leave her better than he found her, to somehow make her forget all of the others. He flipped through pages with each ebb and flow, each wave that crashed over her washed away another chapter, crumpling paper, yellowing pages. It was not until a crystal air moved about the room that he knew he had reached a fresh stark page with which he could spill his ink. 

They loved. He sank into her and she into him. It was a beginning and an end yet it was between lovers. It was a connection between souls that have known eachother since before the first tides and when it overcame them they both collapsed into this chemical tempest. Him atop her they melted into one. They might have laid there for days in and out of consciousness, lost in hungover breathing. Coming back into himself, learning colors again, reconciling time and space he mustered a few languid muscles into action and found himself at her side. 

She remarked at his passion as her fingers explored his chest. In this glow she was intrigued as to what stirred him, from what well did he drink. In the light of day there is a reluctance to explain the words of night, out of context they lose their luster, become tarnished. He allayed with some notion about when he closed his eyes he saw things differently, more intently. This robbing of senses seemed to heighten the others. She wondered if this thing could be summoned. She reached for her silk top that had been discarded in the heat of the moment, slid it behind his head and blocked his light with a delicate knot. He smiled, she implored. Her voice, her insistence seemed to hang in the air. 

And even as he began to describe in stark detail the things that filled his head in those moments he was concerned at how they could be perceived. How with one misplaced verb or adjective he could upset the entire thing. He worked calculatingly. He told of how he approached her as a well written book, a novel and how the words just seemed to flow. He told her how with each twist and turn he was desperate to learn. How he loved to taste each chapter. It was at this moment he felt her move, the bed shuddered. He struggled to reconcile where she was in the room, had she left? The sentiment to overwhelming? He wanted to tear the blindfold from his eyes, flood his rods and cones with white light when he felt her heat above him. Her floral sex filled his senses. She was straddling him now. Lowering her sex onto his mouth as he pontificated of prepositions and pentameter and prose. 

“Did you know I too enjoy writing my dear?” her voice splintering the silence. She sank onto him and his mouth tore through her pages, “I am anxious to share with you my latest chapter”.

These writers.

[gaslightdc]

Another good thing about LED street gizmos is their higher uniformity

ENCOURAGED street lights are intended to replace regular incandescent light fixtures. They have a great energy-efficient design allowing it to be installed around any location. LEDs in lane lights are extremely efficient and may reduce electricity make use of by over 1 / 2. They are furthermore durable, and include a warranty of ten years. However, they do need a large capital expense. For this purpose, some cities usually are opting to replace all of their street lights with LEDs. LED street lights are incredibly efficient and have excellent spectral power distribution. The spectral characteristics on the light source could greatly influence the visibility provided by way of a lighting system. The human attention has two primary types of vision, rods and also cones. During nighttime, rods are the most active, and cones will be the least active. His or her sensitivity curves top at 555 nm and 507 nm, respectively. Another good thing about LED street gizmos is their higher uniformity. A hundred-watt BROUGHT ABOUT street lamp can achieve necessary illuminance level and enhance the uniformity of illumination in a city. In comparison, a typical high-pressure salt lamp may manufacture more illuminance within a specific area, yet lacks uniformity. Additionally, LED street equipment and lighting save energy, making them an intelligent choice for cities. Aside from improving uniformity, LED streetlights likewise offer considerable living space savings. LED street lights contain the highest efficiency amount of all LED avenue lights, and they are much more energy-efficient when compared with traditional sodium lamps. The LEDs emphasis light at you direction, so they are definitely effective than salt street lights concerning illumination. And all around health use less power than sodium street lights, they are less costly to operate in addition to maintain. They furthermore reduce energy costs, which is a serious benefit. AOP features a program where neighborhood governments can switch to LEDs for their streets at not any additional cost. It is going to run until 2022, and when you are in the region, you can exploit this great new technology. LED street lights will be more environmentally friendly as compared to their counterparts. They save as much as 70 percent of energy in comparison with HPS lights. This makes them an added desirable option for several urban areas. Moreover, they are less pricey than HPS. Which consists of high-efficiency, LEDs have likewise become popular regarding roadway lighting. Fortunately they are more energy-efficient than conventional street gizmos. Therefore, the financial savings will translate right into a greater ROI for the city. LED Street lights use light-emitting diodes for their lighting. These lights IP67 Flood Lights Manufacturers undoubtedly are a greener option compared to fluorescent or phosphor-coated lights. They can also be used in parking lots. Unlike other styles of street equipment and lighting, LEDs are green, which means apart from contain mercury. Additionally save money. Plus the best part is, they can always be installed anywhere. These LED equipment and lighting are affordable and may be installed wherever.

[cyberkevvideo]

Throne of Night Theory Builds Part 7: The Masters of the Deep of Book 5

Didn’t know if I’d be continuing this series of theory builds, but finally had a sudden spark of inspiration regarding how you’d make the final picture of Book 5 a viable encounter for a party of 15th level characters.

While i admit I was expecting something more than aberrations being the final boss, it does kind of make some sense that they’d be pulling some strings. Especially aboleth. They can never have too many slaves. That said, they’re only a CR 7. That’s not exactly going to be a threat to a level 15 PC, let alone four of them (or more, depending on the storyline you’re running). And given the designs we’re seeing, there’s no way that any of the creatures we see are a  veiled master. No, it couldn’t possibly that easy. Doesn’t help that they’re not OGL either, so it does make sense that it’s not them. But, I did discover a way to make them at least a moderate threat.

For space reasons, cropping the encounter build.

Again, all images shared here were done by the forever fantastic and amazingly talented Michael D. Clarke, aka SpiralMagus.

EDIT: Cleaned up the build and made it look prettier.

Book 5 discusses how the party learns that there’s something far worse than just a war with a drow army, or dealing with corrupted dwarves. People and caravans are going missing, and strange aberrant creatures are being spotted by nearby watering holes. It’s up to the party to investigate what’s going on, and travel the sunless sea.

By this time in Book 5 of Way of the Wicked, the party had to face off against a CR 20 encounter. It was just one NPC, so it wasn’t much of a threat. I’ve done my own revisions for that encounter and made note of it in my Way of the Wicked category, but I’m banking on the idea that Gary likely repeated his own encounter builds. At least for the difficulty level. So if that’s the case, then the final encounter that we essentially see in the the picture is three huge aboleth underneath a boat carrying the party.

That said, that’s the last picture we see for the update. Michael has also done art for what looks like a nightwave, also CR 20, so that could also be a final encounter, or was something that was come up with to help balance out the a lack of XP before then.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to make aboleth a threat, and then I happened to talk to a buddy who had just finished running Shattered Star for his group, and everything finally made sense. Being a D&D 3.5 player, I had access to the Monster Manual, and something in the back of mine recalled that the aboleth had two versions of itself in it. Sure enough, the aboleth mage right there. It’s on the SRD as well. Combine that with me further researching aboleth in the Lords of Madness book, and I had finally figured out how one could make a viable opponent for the party.

Well, to be fair, there’s three of them in the picture. Add their combined encounter level of 20 to the fact that you’re fighting them in their element, and it’s probably a CR 21. However, if your group is particular wilful and enchantments won’t be doing much this encounter, the aboleth will quickly realize this and teleport away in some manner. They’re not going to allow themselves to slaughtered so easily. They’ll come up with a plan and try again later. The party has definitely got their attention though, and their next bout will be much different.

ABOLETH MAGE    (CR 17; 102,400 XP) Unique Advanced aboleth enchanter 10/loremaster 3 LE Huge aberration (aquatic) Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +23 Aura despair (30 ft., 12 rounds), mucus cloud (5 ft.) DEFENSE AC 31, touch 14, flat-footed 26 (+3 armor, +4 Dex, +2 deflection, +1 dodge, +13 natural, –2 size) hp 280 (21 HD; 8d8+13d6+199) Fort +15, Ref +14, Will +22 OFFENSE Speed 10 ft., swim 60 ft. Melee 4 tentacles +20 (1d6+9 plus slime) Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft. Spell-Like Abilities (CL 16th; concentration +21)   At will—hypnotic pattern (W-DC 17), illusory wall (W-DC 19), mirage arcana (W-DC 20), persistent image (DC 20), programmed image (DC 21), project image (W-DC 22), veil (W-DC 21)   3/day—dominate monster (W-DC 26) Arcane School Spell-Like Abilities (CL 12th; concentration +20)   12/day—dazing touch Enchanter Spells Prepared (CL 12th; concentration +21)   7th—empowered cone of cold (R-DC 27), heightened chain lightning (R-DC 27), mass hold person (W-DC 28), power word blind   6th—disintegrate (F-DC 25), mass suggestion (DC 27), maximized lightning bolt (R-DC 26), quickened mirror image   5th—feeblemind (W-DC 26), heightened hold monster (W-DC 26), empowered lightning bolt (R-DC 25), quickened magic missile, teleport, wall of force   4th—ball lightning (R-DC 24), confusion (W-DC 25), crushing despair (W-DC 25), dimension door, greater invisibility, maximized magic missile, moonstruck (W-DC 25)   3rd—dispel magic, displacement, heroism, hold person (W-DC 24), lightning bolt (F-DC 23), suggestion (W-DC 24), wind wall   2nd—blur, bull’s strength, eagle’s splendor, fox’s cunning, hideous laughter (W-DC 23), resist energy, touch of idiocy   1st—alarm, bungle (W-DC 22), charm person (W-DC 22), expeditious retreat, glitterdust (W-DC 20), magic missile (2), shield   0 (at will)—arcane mark, daze (W-DC 21), mage hand, resistance Opposition Schools divination, necromancy TACTICS Before Combat If the aboleth mage is aware of intruders, it casts blur, bull’s strength, eagle’s splendor, resistance, and heroism. Once it knows what type of creature it’s facing, it considers resist energy and greater invisibility. During Combat An aboleth mage always tries to subdue prey first, as they are always in the market for more slaves. On the first round, the aboleth mage activates its aura of despair then uses a quickened dominate monster and a mass suggestion to have everyone not give in to hostility and jump in the water for a relaxing swim. Arcane spellcasters are their primary target of feeblemind. If a ranged specialist is present, the aboleth uses their quickened mirror image and shield spells. An aboleth mage will attempt to coat potential slaves in slime or have them affected by the mucus cloud. Anyone unaffected by enchantments is instead attacked with evocation spells. Morale An aboleth mage refuses to die in battle. They are aware that not all creatures are affected by mind control, and will teleport away for a time once they are below half their hp. They will carefully think about they will proceed going forward. The stronger the creature, the higher quality of slave. STATISTICS Str 28, Dex 18, Con 28, Int 28, Wis 20, Cha 20 Base Atk +12; CMB +23; CMD 40 (can’t be tripped) Feats Empower SpellB, Eschew Materials, Greater Spell Focus (enchantment), Heightened SpellB, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Quicken SpellB, Quicken Spell-Like Ability (dominate monster), Scribe ScrollB, Skill Focus (Knowledge [dungeoneering]), Spell Focus (enchantment), Spell Focus (evocation), Weapon Focus (tentacle) Skills Acrobatics +27, Appraise +13, Bluff +19, Diplomacy +17, Heal +25, Intimidate +22, Knowledge (arcana) +24, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +24, Knowledge (geography) +24, Knowledge (history) +24, Knowledge (local) +24, Knowledge (nature) +24, Knowledge (planes) +24, Linguistics +22, Perception +23, Sense Motive +19, Spellcraft +24, Stealth +13, Survival +12, Swim +28, Use Magic Device +16; Racial Modifiers +8 Swim Languages Aboleth, Abyssal, Aklo, Aquan, Common, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Ignan, Infernal, Protean, Terran, Undercommon, plus 7 languages SQ arcane bond (amulet), enchanting smile +4, lore +1, secret (dodge trick, knowledge of avoidance) Gear amulet of proof against detection and location (bonded item), bracers of armor +3, headband of vast intellect +2 (Heal), ring of protection +2, rod of metamagic (extend), “Tome of the Deep Masters” spellbook SPECIAL ABILITIES Mucus Cloud (Ex) While underwater, an aboleth exudes a cloud of transparent slime. All creatures adjacent to an aboleth must succeed on a DC 23 Fortitude save each round or lose the ability to breathe air (but gain the ability to breathe water) for 3 hours. Renewed contact with an aboleth’s mucus cloud and failing another save extends the effect for another 3 hours. The save DC is Constitution-based. Slime (Ex) A creature hit by an aboleth’s tentacle must succeed on a DC 23 Fortitude save or his skin and flesh transform into a clear, slimy membrane over the course of 1d4 rounds. The creature’s new “flesh” is soft and tender, reducing its Constitution score by 4 as long as it persists. If the creature’s flesh isn’t kept moist, it dries quickly and the victim takes 1d12 points of damage every 10 minutes. Remove disease and similar effects can restore an afflicted creature to normal, but immunity to disease offers no protection from this attack. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Tome of the Deep Masters Protections Average lock with arcane lock (DC 35), symbol of laughter on the first page of the book (Will DC 25), symbol of stunning on the last page of the book (Will DC 28), and the 5th- and 6th-level spells are hidden with secret page. The special word is “succumb” in Aboleth. The book and pages are made of leather and completely waterproof. Spells contained within are all prepared spells plus: all Core cantrips; 1st—erase, identify, mage armor, memory lapse, protection from good, unseen servant; 2nd—arcane lock, bear’s endurance, cat’s grace, darkness, knock, magic mouth; 3rd—nondetection, protection from energy, secret page; 4th—black tentacles, dimensional anchor, resilient sphere, stone shape, symbol of laughter; 5th—cone of cold, dominate person, dismissal, fabricate; 6th—geas/quest, greater dispel magic; 7th—symbol of stunning

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If what’s on the update page is correct, then that should complete Book 5.

These are my own designs for how I think things might go, and can be changed or ignored entirely. It was just something I wanted to do for myself. The itch has once again been scratched for the time being.

[mobileautorepairpros]

Road Tests: 2020 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport

Vital Statistics

Engine: 3.6 liter

Horsepower: 276

Torque: 266 lb-ft.

0-60 mph: 8.4 seconds

1/4 mile: 16.3 seconds @ 94 mph

EPA: 16 mpg city / 22 mpg highway

Energy Impact: 17.3 barrels of oil/yr

CO2 Emissions: 7.9 tons/yr

Volkswagen entered the family-size 3-row crossover arena just 2-years ago ready to play, with the fantastic Atlas. Well, it turns out that the mid-size Atlas was just the beginning of things to come. Now we find that this new 2-row Atlas Cross Sport has joined the team. Now is the Cross Sport going to be another game changer for Volkswagen or just a supporting player? 

The first thing to keep in mind when it comes to this 5-passenger 2020 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport, is that “Sport” here applies to this Atlas’ re-formed shape, plus perhaps to a bit of a lifestyle change. So, forget about any hot rod upgrades. There are no performance enhancements compared to its 3-row brother. Still, it ditches that young-rider 3rd row in exchange for more style and more features. 

But, hold on. It’s also not really a coupe-like redo, as the German luxury brands are wont to do; more of just a slightly more stylish 2-row version of an existing 3-row SUV. Think Honda Passport.

And in profile it is indeed very similar to the rest of the mid-size 2-row crossover crowd. Overall length is about 5-inches less than the Atlas, on the same 117.3-inch wheelbase. And it sits 2.2-inches lower, feasibly lending some credence to the Sport moniker.

The 3-bar chrome grille, front bumper, and lighting are all slightly altered; with full LED lights across the board.

Silver roof rails and 18-inch wheels are standard, with up to 21s available; as is a huge panoramic roof.

Still very spacious inside, with plenty of room for growing families, and remains highly functional. Front seats are wide and roomy, while the back seat has additional legroom, and reclines farther than in the Atlas; 3-across is not a problem here. 

And in another slight nod to Sport, there’s a unique steering wheel, as well as an available 2-tone interior theme.

Everything is very simple and straightforward inside. Base S gets a 6.5-inch touchscreen for infotainment; which goes to 8.0-inches for every other trim. 

Standard gauges are clear and informative, but we really do love Volkswagen’s Audi-inspired digital cockpit. It alone is worth the upgrade to SEL trim. 

There’s 40.3 cubic-ft. of cargo space; expanding to 77.8, with the rear seatbacks folded, which is 19.0 cubic-ft. less than the Atlas. 

It’s not overly powerful, regardless of which of the 2 engines you choose. Standard with all trims is a 235-horsepower 2.0-liter I4 turbo. SE and SEL trims can upgrade to this 276-horsepower 3.6-liter V6 with 266 lb-ft. of torque. 

The biggest advantages of the 6-cylinder being smoothness and overall quieter operation, plus the ability to tow up to 5,000-lbs. 

Both are available with 4Motion all-wheel-drive, with programmed drive modes for off-road and snow. 

Like the Atlas, ride quality is smooth; the 8-speed automatic transmission equally on board with that mission, as well. 

The Atlas Sport Cross is the first Volkswagen to offer Traffic Jam Assist and Dynamic Road Sign Display; there’s also Maneuver braking which intends to keep you from hitting anything when parking. But Automatic Emergency Braking is standard. 

Put the “Sport” in Sport Mode, and off the line the V6 feels, well, very sporty. Throttle tip-in is aggressive. But as revs climb and shifts lag, so did our 0-60 at 8.4 seconds. Still, that’s fast enough to get home before the ice cream melts. And, the ¼ miles is competitive at 16.3 seconds and 94 miles per hour.

We’d stop short of calling it nimble through the cones, but it feels pretty darn agile for a fairly large SUV; and that can of course be attributed to its MQB-bones, the same architecture you’ll find under a VW Golf.  Identical 4-wheel independent suspension as the regular Atlas, just slightly re-tuned.

Government Fuel Economy Ratings for an all-wheel-drive 3.6-liter are 16-City, 22-Highway, and 19–Combined. We averaged a respectable 20.4 miles-per-gallon on Regular. Still that’s a worse than average Energy Impact Score; 17.3-barrels of oil yearly, while emitting 7.9-tons of CO2.

Like the 3-row Atlas, pricing is very reasonable, starting at just $31,565; top SEL trim, at $40,565. Adding all-wheel-drive, another $1,900.

So, the 2020 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport is not another game changer. But, with it, VW not only wedges another all-important SUV player into their lineup, but gives people that don’t need a 3rd row a slightly more stylish, comfortable, and perhaps better lifestyle option. Looks like Volkswagen found an alternative role for success for the Atlas.

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[flauntpage]

TOP V. FROM EXPO CHICAGO 2019

Welcome to this week’s TOP V from EXPO CHICAGO at Navy Pier. Also, don’t forget to check out this week’s TOP V for a selection of provocative programs being exhibited in spaces both large and small around Chicago this weekend.

  1. TEMPLON Booth 141 Work by: Franz Ackerman, Omar Ba, James Casebere, Francesco Clemente, Philippe Cognée, Jime Dine, Jitish Kallat, Iván Navarro, Philip Pearlstein, George Segal, Chiharu Shiota*, Kehinde Wiley 

  2.  IN/SITU :Janine Antoni Work by: Janine Antoni (sponsored by Luhring Augustine)

  3. Zalucky Contemporary Booth 151 Work by: Sam Cotter, Lee Henderson, Lili Huston-Herterich, Laura Moore, Jim Verburg, Jacob Robert Whibley*

  4. Royale Projects Booth 272 Work by: Jane Callister, Kenneth Capps, Alejandro Diaz, Ewerdt Hilgemann, Estate of Clinton HIll, Karen Lofgren*, Ken Lum, Kristin McIver, Rubén Ortiz Torres, David Allan Peters

  5. Miles Mcenery Gallery Booth 267 Work by: Brian Alfred, Kevin Appel, Bo Bartlett, Amy Bennett, Suzanne Caporael, Davis Cone, Gene Davis, Tomory Dodge, Inka Essenhigh, Franklin Evans, Beverly Fishman, Helen Frankenthaler, Monique van Genderen, Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Iva Gueorguieva, James Hayward, Hans Hofmann, Warren Isensee, Wolf Kahn, Tom LaDuke, Annie Lapin, Julio Larraz, Erin Lawlor, Patrick Lee, Markus Linnenbrink, Morris Louis, Emily Mason, Ryan McGinness, Jason Middlebrook, Yunhee Min, Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Noland, Rod Penner, David Allan Peters, Judy Pfaff, Michael Reafsnyder, Daniel Rich*, John Sonsini, Tam Van Tran, Esteban Vicente, Patrick Wilson, Guy Yanai, Liat Yossifor

Hey Chicago, submit your events to The Visualist here:  http://www.thevisualist.org.

TOP V. WEEKEND PICKS (9/27-10/3)

TOP V. WEEKEND PICKS (10/27-11/2)

Episode 554: Ben Stone

Episode 534: Jitish Kallat

Episode 513: Janine Antoni

TOP V. FROM EXPO CHICAGO 2019 published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[sadieedginton]

A Proposal for an immersive play-space

A proposal for an immersive play-space, ‘play-object-scape’ co-created with the children that would use it. This proposal was shortlisted for Art Dubai Art Fair’s, Children’s and Teenagers commission, The Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program’ in 2018, but did not make the final cut. I would like to fully realise it. Any advice, or offers of venues welcome.

“Taking its influence from Sadie’s current practice concerns, ‘Play-object-scape’ will explore the notion of how ‘play’ is enacted through the childs relation to the built environment and the design of play-objects. The project will look at how designed spaces and play equipment can effect the experience of ‘lived’ moments of play in a child, by working with the children beforehand in schools workshop and in the installation space to explore this through collective making together. We will support the children to make play objects inspired by the street games from their local area. There is room to research other historical or cultural games from children’s histories and those passed down through family stories. The artworks will litter the floor and walls of the installation space, marking out and taking-up room, the children can choose where to place them in spatial relations to their imagined future use of the space and journeys through it. 

Street games are often inventive objects created by children from whatever materials are readily available. They epitomise a highly creative and economically imaginative design. Applying the possible use of materials, they relate closely to the how the body can work with these materials, the scale of the children using it, and the play-relations between them.

For example, Alraj, is a game in which a bicycle wheel rim is fitted with a metal rod and pushed forward quickly.

Taking some simple formal elements from street games, such as the stick, wheel, hoop and cone, the children will be able to create their own objects that relate to how they imagine holding, pushing or using them in play scenarios.

Through using a combination of different materials, of different densities, weights and textures such as cardboard, padding and mod-roc we will extend and add to these shapes, taking into account playful imagined uses for them. The aim would be for the children to to imagine and create their own new play-objects around particular invented games and the materials dimensions, movement and function, in relation to how the objects are used by the body.”

November 2018

[itsworn]

2018 LMC Truck C10 Nationals

The popularity of Chevy trucks has been going strong ever since the first Bowtie pickup rolled off the assembly line. In recent years, that popularity has grown even stronger, extending from the Advance Design era all the way into the 1980s, with the Squarebody era. In between, the ’67-72 Chevy and GMC body styles have seen a huge surge in popularity due to their impeccable styling and a healthy aftermarket. So, it came as no surprise when I heard the news that LMC Truck was spearheading an event that would celebrate all things Chevy truck.

Naturally, Texas was chosen as the location for the event, more specifically, the Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth. With plenty of space for a show & shine, swap meet, and vendor alley the Speedway even had a nice section carved out for an autocross course, affectionately named the “Throwdown in Cowtown”. Any truck registered for the event was offered the opportunity to roast its tires around the cones and many did just that!

In addition to the festivities were a laundry list of awards handed out at the end of Saturday for everything from Best Paint to People’s Choice with a winner and a runner up for every year break (’48-55, ’55-57, etc).

For the CT staff, we had a particular investment in the show. Just a few months back, we built a gorgeous ’85 C10 as part of our Week to Wicked program that was to be given away at the end of the show. So, come Satruday afternoon, we watched with the rest of the crowd as one lucky winner was drawn and awarded the keys. Congrats to George Sepulveda for the big win as well as all the guys who left, trophy in hand! For more information and to view a full list of the winners, check out www.c10nationals.com.

The post 2018 LMC Truck C10 Nationals appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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[raglanphd]

The Language Instinct

The best summary of the Language Instinct I found in another Pinker book, The Blank Slate:

"Language is based on a combinatorial grammar designed to communicate an unlimited number of thoughts. It is utilized by people in real time via an interplay of memory lookup and rule application. It is implemented in a network of regions in the center of the left cerebral hemisphere that must coordinate memory, planning, word meaning, and grammar. It develops in the first three years of life in a sequence from babbling to words to word combinations, including errors in which rules may be overapplied. It evolved through modifications of a vocal tract and brain circuitry that had other uses in earlier primates, because the modifications allowed our ancestors to prosper in a socially interconnected, knowledge-rich lifestyle."

What Pinker does is present Noam Chomsky's revolutionary theory of deep grammar as an evolved adaptation of the species. Chomsky was skeptical that universal grammar could be explained by the process of natural selection, and so that is where this book takes off: to match cognitive linguistics to the Neo-Darwinian paradigm.

Chomsky's theory is that language has an innate structure in the mind, like a computer has built in hardware. Though languages may differ in gender pronouns or the order of noun to verb, all languages have a universal structure. Latin has gendered pronouns compared to English, but whether pronouns are gendered or not is a reality all languages have. Every language has a noun phrase and a verb phrase regardless of the word order. "Pigs fly" is about a simple sentence as one can get; pigs is the noun phrase and fly is the verb phrase. Also universal is the auxiliary which tells something about the relation of noun and verb. "Pigs don't fly." The auxiliary is parallel to the copula in logic (are, are not): ScP. The auxiliary belongs to the noun phrase. In every language there is an object an action, just as in logic there is a subject, a copula and a predicate.

This fundamental division of language and logic into the relation of noun-verb and subject-predicate is related to the perception of the world into space and time. Things can be separated into objects which persist in time in different spaces and do different things in particular times and places. This is advantageous for the survival of the species.

"It's a jungle out there, and the organism designed to make successful predictions about what is going to happen next will leave behind more babies designed just like it. Slicing space-time into objects and actions is an eminently sensible way to make predictions given the way the world is put together...Look away, and the rabbit still exists."

There are two rules used to convey meaning: Saussure's arbitrariness of the sign which pairs sound with conventional meaning and Wilhelm Von Humboldt´s "language makes infinite use of finite media." A sign can stand for just about anything, and the combination of words with recursion, reuse of phrases, can produce seemingly infinite words with different meanings.

"The way language works, then, is that each person's brain contains a lexicon of words and the concepts they stand for (a mental dictionary) and a set of rules that combine the words to convey relationships among concepts (a mental grammar)."

Pinker criticizes the influential Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: that language determines or is necessary for any conscious awareness. It would be strange if animals had no awareness at all. From an evolutionary standpoint this is absurd as humans evolved from a non-speaking common ancestor. The hard version of Sapir-Whorf is linguistic determinism, the weak version is linguistic relativity that language shapes our perception. Infants and animals exhibit a basic cognitive ability to differentiate things. The claims Sapir-Whorf relies on are reports of languages which lack words for certain colors. What experiments show, in particular the one by Elizabeth Rosch with the Dani people, is that people are able to understand a color in relation to ones they have words for. As Pinker says, it would be incredulous that language could alter what the physiological senses give us, and rewire the cones, rods, and retina of our eyes. Language is an adaptation itself rooted in physiology, though I think sentient awareness is a different thing than self-consciousness which requires language.

"Though most common words have many meaning, few meanings have more than one word. That is, homonyms are plentiful, synonyms rare."

This goes to dissuade fears of a George Orwell 1984 future where language is used to alter people´s perception of reality. In his famous essay Politics and the English Language Orwell argued that totalitarian regimes justified their actions by debasing language into simple emotional phrases that are either totally positive or totally negative. Ideas can be condensed into unambiguous phrases and ideally into single words which will invert the natural human suspicion of power into total submission, like Miniluv for the ministry of love which tortures people. While this may be a more effective means of state communication and propaganda, it isn´t going to destroy our perception of reality.

"The twenty first century toddler may be Winston Smith's revenge."

Several organs are used in the production of speech: the vocal cords, the trachea, the tongue and the mouth. Air leaves the lungs through the trachea (windpipe) which opens into the larynx (voice box, visible as the Adam's apple). The larynx is a valve with an opening covered by two flaps of muscle tissue called vocal cords but really are vocal folds. The frequency of vocal folds opening and closing determines pitch. Our brains process language in the left hemisphere: Wernicke's area is associated with language understanding and Broca's area is associated with production of language. Language production usually begins at age one, word combination at one and a half, and fluent grammatical sentences at two or three. Infants can already distinguish between sounds and have a basic mental language, ¨mentalese.¨

We think with mental representations, not just with a particular language. This is what computers do with their operating systems for us. "People do not think in English or Chinese or Apache; they think in a language of thought...There must be extra paraphernalia that differentiate logically distinct kinds of concepts."

"People without a language would still have mentalese", like non-human animals and infants do.¨

The behaviorist perspective influential to the mid-twentieth century denied a language of thought or any consciousness not translatable to observable behavior. There is no basic language of thought which is universal, programmed in us. It is all learned as individuals. A passage from another Pinker book How the Mind Works is useful here:

"The computational theory of mind also rehabilitates once and for all the infamous homunculus. A standard objection to the idea that thoughts are internal representations (an objection popular among scientists trying to show how tough-minded they are) is that a representation would require a little man in the head to look at it, and the little man would require an even littler man to look at the representations inside him, and so on, ad infinitum...Why doesn't all this homunculus talk lead to an infinite regress? Because an internal representation is not a lifelike photograph of the world, and the homunculus that 'looks at it' is not a miniaturized copy of the entire system, requiring its entire intelligence. That indeed would explain nothing. Instead, a representation is a set of symbols corresponding to aspects of the world, and each homunculus is required only to react in a few circumscribed ways to some of the symbols, a feat far simpler than what the system as a whole does. The intelligence of the system emerges from the activities of the not-so-Intelligent mechanical demons inside of it."

The homunculi would correspond to neurons in our brains and transistors in computers I guess. The functions they do collectively are conscious awareness. Consciousness as internal representations do exist, and so does mentalese.

From Karen Wynn´s experiments we see that five month infants can do simple mental arithmetic: show a baby a bunch of objects long enough and the baby gets bored and looks away; change the scene and the baby notices the difference and is interested. Five day old babies are also sensitive to number; they notice if when screen removed and more objects are there such as when two Mickey Mouse dolls is placed behind a curtain and notice if the second one taken away. Given these abilities and others also observed in animals we see it is possible to have mental software which can build towards language comprehension and production.

For language to be an instinct, there needs to be credible evolutionary mechanisms. BF Skinner whose view of language was opposite of Chomsky's said that instinct just means what we haven't found an explanation for. Instinct for Pinker means innate or heritable, having a basis in our biology and shared by all humans in normal course of development. Natural selection requires different forms of language which can be selected from. Proto-languages would include chimp signing, pidgin, child language in two word stage, and partial language of children raised by children. "The languages of children, pidgin speakers, immigrants, tourists, aphasics, telegrams, and headlines show that there is a vast continuum of viable language systems varying in efficiency and expressive power, exactly what the theory of natural selection requires." Pidgin is a language formed by speakers of different languages, and aphasia is damage to the left brain hemisphere which impairs language.

One must be careful with speculations for how language began, otherwise we end up with just-so stories which may be useful and entertaining but lack proof. Pinker mentions the Throwing Madonna hypothesis that the reason why most people are right-handed is because prehistoric mothers held their babies with their left arm to calm them with the heartbeat, and so the right hand was free to throw stones at small game. These women survived and passed on their genes, by both pacifying their fussy babies and contributing to the hunt. It´s a fascinating story but its hard to imagine how to prove this is the reason why most people around the world are right-handed and left brain dominant. Such stories tend to discredit evolutionary psychology in the minds of critics, so we can come up with scenarios for how language could evolve but it is better to search for data.

The language mutant baby could have had siblings to talk to, and other family members would have had other more primitive means of communication, which would have given an advantage to the language mutants. Pinker does think language serves important services for our survival against the environment and in social life. "If contemporary hunter gatherers are any guide, our ancestors were not grunting cave men with little more to talk about than which mastodon to avoid. Hunter gatherers are accomplished toolmakers and superb amateur biologists with detailed knowledge of the life cycles, ecology, and behavior of the plants and animals they depend on. Language would surely have been useful in anything resembling such a lifestyle...People everywhere depend on cooperative efforts for survival, forming alliances by exchanging information and commitments."

I think sexual selection could also have been a mechanism. Sexual selection occurs when males compete with other males for females and the females choose who to mate with. The selection process is about what can signal greater fitness, in terms of resource provision among other things. The book The Mating Mind argues that intelligence evolved this way by sexual selection as an ornament to impress females like the feathers of the male peacock. Much of our intellect is not about struggling against the environment and definitely doesn´t reflect reality, but demonstrates our ability to expend energy and time to such superfluous social activities like a handicap.

Keep in mind that written language is not an instinct. Written language is a late development in human history and is not universal. This is why reading disorders like dyslexia are with us even in our literate societies. Alphabets don't correspond to sounds, at best they correspond to the phonemes of the mental dictionary. Foreigners can usually spell better than they pronounce, as according to Bernard Shaw fish can be spelled as ghoti.

Just because language is an instinct doesn't make it not special, just as the fact that birds are designed to fly doesn't make the feat less impressive to us. The big takeaway of The Language Instinct is language is a universal human adaptation with a basis in biology and evolution. No matter how different various human languages are, they share basic structure. This means accepting that there is such a thing as a scientifically meaningful human nature that has something to do with biology and evolution. This belief may be politically incorrect for some people, but it also means on a fundamental level we are the same and can understand one another.

I also take away from The Language Instinct that folk language, like folk psychology, isn´t really wrong or useless. Of course it often is wrong from a scientific point of view and science does require precise technical language, but for the purpose of communication mentalese is fine. This was Ludwig Wittgenstein´s insight: that the nature of language is public, and so we can understand one another without a technically precise or scientific language so long as there is an agreed upon meaning of words in a language community.

[vctrmagazine]

magnetic reality: setting the stage for mass murder in school

john-ivan palmer

Once a metaphysical mutation has arisen, it tends to move inexorably towards its logical conclusion. Heedlessly, it sweeps away economic and political systems, aesthetic judgments and social hierarchies. No human agency can halt its progress—nothing except another metaphysical mutation.

—Michel Houellebecq, Les particules élémentaires, 1998

Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) created a device called the baquet (tub, bucket) large enough for numerous people to sit around in a lavish studio. It was somewhat like a TV with rabbit ears, but the screen was inside your head. The rabbit ears were metal rods you touched so the “magnetic fluid” within the baquet, supposedly held in iron filings and “magnetized” water, could go into you like electricity.

Mesmer’s contraption was nothing new in the history of magnets and therapeutic mojo used by healers since antiquity. Cleopatra reportedly slept on an actual magnet as a skin treatment. But Mesmer’s magnetism, some invisible fluid captured by hocus pocus from empty space, went beyond its claimed power to heal whatever the ailment. It functioned as pastime, entertainment. If you touched one of the baquet’s rabbit ears you went bonkers, rolled on the floor, laughed, cried, kissed your brains good-bye. You were mesmerized. A fee was charged. It was quite the rage.

Those capable of analytical thought (Ben Franklin, to name one) dismissed Mesmer’s “animal magnetism” as nothing more than imagination. King Louis XVI, however, took it more seriously and formed a Royal Commission that concluded, “The spectacle of the crises [crazy responses] is…dangerous because of that imitation that Nature seems to have set as a law for us…In consequence, all public treatment at which the practice of magnetism is employed, can only have, in the long run, sinister effects.” He could not see what those long run, sinister effects would be, but did observe with concern magnetic imitators cropping up all over Paris to everyone’s great delight.

The modern version of Mesmer’s baquet is any object with a mesmerizing screen. Teenagers spend an average of nine hours a day in front of one and four thousand people a year die on the highway from having their attention taken away by its suggestive influence.

I used to demonstrate mesmerism as an educational program. School Assembly Service in Chicago booked me for thirty-six weeks at a time, traveling a thousand miles a week across ten Midwestern states performing two to four assemblies per day. I also worked through Dakota Assemblies, affiliated with North Dakota State University in Fargo, and appeared at a majority of all the high schools in the Dakotas as well as parts of Montana, Nebraska and Minnesota. This put me in more schools in a week, certainly in a month, than most teachers and administrators see in their entire career. A salesperson set up the routes a year in advance, scheduling me as well as folk singers, whistlers, jugglers and magicians who merged what they did with an educational “message,” however lame, to justify the cost, even though it was openly understood that the assembly was an excuse to get out of class for a little amusement. My program consisted of manipulating high school students into rowing imaginary boats and eating non-existent ice cream cones, talking Martian and meowing like cats. It was sold as “Mind in Action.”

There was something I didn’t realize at first because it happened so slowly. Over several years reactions to my program began to diminish. Demand itself declined from four hundred agency booked school appearances a year to fifty that I booked myself. Then half of that, and then half again. The same was true for the whistlers, jugglers and magicians along with their lame messages. School assembly agencies themselves went out of business one by one. With agencies gone, schools gave in to no-cost assemblies by military recruiters, religious proselytizers, or cops talking about drugs. A whole new administrative protocol emerged and principals receded into the background. They no longer wandered among their students like a shepherd tending their flock. They delegated assembly decisions to student committees loosely working under advisors. All pretense of educational message was gone and the committees were more likely to bring in local boy bands popular on Facebook.

The more television monitors I saw in halls and classrooms, the more computers I saw crowding out bookshelves in the library, the more channels available on TV, the more heads I saw looking down at gizmos in the palm, the less impressed they were by fantasy cats and Martians. I tried telling everyone to turn off their smartphones, thinking that would solve the problem of divided attention, but it was as impractical as telling everyone put away their shoes. I was competing against a whole new baquet.

In October of 2005 I arrived at the high school on Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. Because of widely publicized spree shootings at American schools, most notably Columbine, Red Lake took no chances and installed an airport-style weapons detector at the front door. Schools had been the busiest and most open public places in any community, but they became locked asylums. Two friendly security guards in street clothes were expecting me for my noon assembly. “It’s OK,” said one. “The machine isn’t turned on.” I was trustworthy enough to bypass the weapons detector. One of them escorted me to the gym to set up my sound system and arrange the chairs for volunteers.

I saw on the wall a notice that read: HICKEYS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. Schools often had their own battle lines over one thing or another: wearing hats indoors, skirt length, printing on T-shirts. One school had a major issue over the π symbol written on walls and mirrors, referring to some incident “too complicated to explain.” Hickeys themselves were no surprise, but this was the first time I’d seen them as an overt issue. The sign went on to read: If you are seen with a hickey you will be sent to the office and it will be covered with makeup. If not, then you will be sent home. In an isolated place like the Red Lake Reservation, what else was there for teenagers to do but suck each other’s necks, especially with the thrilling knowledge that it was forbidden?

Rules against unconventional hairstyles had long since been abandoned in schools so I was used to every kind of coif, but nothing quite like the one on the hefty, alert-looking boy who passed me at the hickey sign. He had gelled his hair up on the back of his head into two horns. As one odd stranger to another we exchanged greetings and went our separate ways.

According to my personal show report, I began my demonstration at 12:01 and ended at 1:13 p.m. I wrote that the audience was unfocused at first, but once the subjects (eight males and six females) were put into a mesmeric state and given suggestions of fishing, surf boarding, and driving a monster bus, responses were adequate, but not as frenzied as past years.

Eighteen months later I saw the horn-haired boy’s face again. It was in the paper. He was identified as Jeff Weise (“Wees”). His grandfather was a police sergeant on the reservation. At 2:45 in the afternoon Weise, now sixteen, stole his grandfather’s police car and crashed it into the front of the school. At the weapons detector (whether it was turned on or not didn’t matter) he pulled out a semi-automatic pistol and shot to death one of the two friendly security guards. The other fled for his life. Weise proceeded to the left down the hall where I had first met him under the hickey sign, entered a classroom and murdered seven more people. Then he put the pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. That ended whatever state of mind he was in.

He was not one of my subjects a year and a half earlier and I can only assume he was among the spectators. Whether he was in a “trance state” during his murder spree is a matter of speculation. Whether he was in what’s called “baseline consciousness” is equally speculative. Perhaps he was in a state similar to the one he was in during those many hours he spent alone in front of modernism’s baquet, playing violent videogames and composing bloody “flashtunes,” murder animations composed with easily-obtained software and posted on Newgrounds.com. A year and a half earlier when I was at his school, if he had walked all the way down the hall to the gymnasium where the entire student body sat in the bleachers, he would have encountered a greater concentration of potential victims. Instead of the dubious distinction of enacting the second largest high school shooting in American history (after Columbine) he could have launched himself into first place. He certainly would have upstaged me.

When such an anomalous performance occurs people want answers. Simple ones easy to understand. If we just do this. If we just do that. There is no lack of professional advice. “Cause” is the operative word. Psychologist David Walsh, leading proponent of “scripts” theory, proposes that certain behaviors are “wired” into brains. Note the indirect reference to the combination of suggestive influence and electro magnetism. Dr. George Realmuto, University of Minnesota child psychiatrist, is quoted on Public Radio as saying that certain people are genetically predisposed to school shootings. “I don’t think we have a mechanism for stopping them,” he adds. Clearly, a costly weapons detector did nothing to stop Jeff Weise. One can focus on such proximate factors as bullying and treating mental distress, factors in Weise’s case and in most other school shootings, and addressing those issues, however imperfectly, is about all that can reasonably done besides the lock-ups and buzz-ins. Beyond that that we’d have to turn the clock back to an age of a simpler, less lethal baquet. Dr. Edward Shorter, Faculty of Medicine at Toronto University, says, “It’s hard to imagine an Adam Lanza [Sandy Hook massacre, twenty-eight dead] existing a century ago, before this culture of violence and depravity [was] available at the click of a mouse or press of a button.”

In August and September of 2004 Jeff Weise was deeply immersed in his private baquet on Newgrounds.com, a forum for videogames, many violent, like “Minute of Rage” (“Try to survive one minute on [sic] the deadly arena”) and “Outsourced Hell” (“Manage your own little hell in this dark idle game”). He posted his own reviews of several games and amateur animations, and, curiously, gave the highest rating to a notably nonviolent, minimalist piece titled “Hidden in the Snow,” consisting of just one static image of three small, white, meteor-like streaks on a black background. It’s not known whether Weise saw this image as a symbol of his own disintegrated family (he was the only child of an alcoholic mother and suicidal father), but he did make this comment: “Jawohl… you've managed to captivate my simple, and often moronic, child-like, mind.” He added, “lacks three things: content, naked women, and guns...” The artist responded to Weise’s comment by writing, “wth [what the hell] does jawohl mean?” All he had to do was Google the word and find it means “yes” in German. Why the German? Why did Weise identify himself elsewhere in a chat room as “Todesengel,” German for “Angel of Death”? Because, as a Native American mesmerized by the Internet, he had come to idolize Hitler and was active on the website Nazi.org.

He posted two flashtune animations on Newgrounds.com under one of his various pseudonyms, “Regret” (197 fans). The first was the thirty-second “Clown,” featuring a psychotic bozo trembling to a background of eerie death music by the goth band Evanescence. A male figure enters the frame and the clown grabs him. Cut to the clown’s big shoes on which splats a huge gush of blood.

“Target Practice” is another thirty-second flashtune by Regret with more complex animated movement. A male figure with no facial features except a horizontal bar across the eye area, appears carrying a bag. He coolly puffs a cigarette, removes an assault rifle from the bag and shoots four people, none of whom have faces either. One figure stands with hands behind its back as if a prisoner awaiting execution, another is simply a bystander, and another is sitting on a park bench. When the bullets hit, their heads explode in bursts of red. The shooter throws a hand grenade and blows up a police car before finishing off someone in, paradoxically, a Klan hood. Then he puts a pistol in his mouth and pulls the trigger in a final blood-burst of red. Something like that is more darkly stimulating in a primal way that a live person licking an imaginary ice cream cone. The similarities between “Target Practice” and Weise’s performance on March 21, 2005, are so obvious they hardly need pointing out. Beginning with the word “practice” in the title, it goes on from there. Similar flashtunes by others are just as violent, yet do not result in their creators committing mass shootings. But they still entrance and influence through the digital baquet. “Target Practice” is still posted on Newgrounds.com and registers over 500,000 views.

In their world of virtual unreality, the Columbine shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, let the baquet’s mesmeric mania enter and take over their minds. With the imitative quality King Louis’s investigative Commission warned of, they influenced each other and a few pals to become a death cult known as the Trench Coat Mafia. When showtime came around, their staged performance, planned to coincide with Hitler’s birthday, left fifteen dead, including themselves, and twenty wounded, mostly among books in the school library. It was not from the interaction of their personal pathologies with books, but with the baquet.

Through the electro-mesmeric ether (electronic media) the power of suggestion traveled with the speed of thought into the mind of Jeff Weise in the Minnesota boonies. Spending more time at his computer than in the real world, his rational mind slid toward annihilation. Like Klebold and Harris before him he wore a long black trench coat. Like them he admired Hitler and planned his attack on the dictator’s birthday. During the Columbine massacre Harris asked one of his victims before shooting her, “Do you believe in God?” Weise parroted the same question before shooting one of his own victims.

Ironically, Benjamin Franklin, in Paris at the time and part of the Royal Commission, could not see the future power of his own discoveries in electricity to some day transmit mesmeric suggestions over great geographical distances. “Sensitive creatures,” as the Commission described them, in whom “reason has less empire over them,” combined with the discovery of Franklin’s electro-magnetic flow, set in motion the long line of interactive causation resulting in the Columbine and Red Lake massacres. A student in Tuusula, Finland murdered eight people at his own high school. Another Finnish shooter was alleged to have been in touch via the Internet with a teen planning a Columbine-style attack back in Pennsylvania. Evidence found in a chat room led to a similar plan at a school in Kaart, Germany. A plot in Göttingen was based on the anniversary of a school shooting in Emsdett, Germany. A similar plot was uncovered in Cologne. Five years prior, a school massacre in Erfurt was the largest mass killing at a German high school, exceeding even Columbine, with seventeen killed, including the shooter, who missed Hitler’s birthday by less than a week, landing instead on the birthday of William Shakespeare. Ironically, at the very moment Jeff Weise was shooting his classmates, a film on Shakespeare was being shown in a nearby classroom, which he overlooked because it was dark, and thought the room was empty. This grim juxtaposition of the pre-baquet (Shakespeare) with the post-baquet (Columbine) era is similar to another juxtaposition depicted in a photo in Beiler and Smucker’s Think No Evil, Inside the Story of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting (2009), where an Amish horse and buggy passes by a “media horde” of satellite dishes relaying the event.

Criminologist Frank Robertz is quoted in the Guardian: “The phenomenon of massacres by young people in schools…has only existed since Columbine.” What Robertz does not mention, probably because he is not a mesmerist, is that the seeds of Columbine began to germinate when the two magnetisms (animal and electro) merged to massively inflate the imitative, unstoppable power of suggestion warned about centuries earlier. If nothing could be done about it then, most certainly nothing can be done about it now.

John-Ivan Palmer's work has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Nth Position, Wild River Review, Wisconsin Review, New Oregon Review, and Other Voices. The Drill Press published his novel, Motels of Burning Madness, and in 2009 and he received the Pushcart Prize for fiction.