Mixed Media

PURLOINED

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment

 

Out of nowhere, that unknown place where thoughts breed and memories thicken, a song keeps running through my head.  It is not a new song, but a simple old melody with quaint lyrics. Nor is this tune one that would ingratiatingly ingrain itself on a normal brain.  Yet it did—and all because to the word ‘purloined’.

THE DARING YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE

CHORUS: He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease, that daring young man on the flying Trapeze. His movements were graceful, all girls he could please, and my love he purloined away.”

‘Purloin’ is a word you do not here often in the modern world. It means to underhandedly steal away. Though the root of the word has nothing to do with ‘loin’ in the erotic sense, the lyrics in the chorus insinuate a sexual arousal.

Once I was happy but now I’m forlorn

Like an old coat that is tattered and town

Left on this wide world to fret and to mourn,

Betrayed by a maid in her teens

Ah, yes, the proverbial maid in her teens—when hormones run rampant, passions soar, and common sense often flies into the stratosphere.  The maiden’s  curves and appeal are often the most voluptuous when she is in estrus, giving off the primitive scent of ovulation.

The girl that I loved she was handsome

I tried all I knew her to please

But I could not please her one quarter so well

Like that man on the Flying Trapeze

CHORUS:

He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease

A daring young man on the flying Trapeze

His movements were graceful, all girls he could please

And my love he purloined away.

According to The Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia, the 1868 song “The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze” is “arguably the most famous circus song in American popular music”.

JULES LEOTARDThe song has a known history. It was about the exploits—sexual and artistic—of Jules Léotard, who developed the trapeze into an art form in the 1860s. He invented and popularized the one-piece athletic wear now called for him. The suit clearly displayed his underlying physique, a look that charmed women and inspired the song about purloined love.  The song was first published in 1867, words written by the British lyricist and singer George Leybourne, music by Gaston Lyle. Thomas Hischak says the song was first heard in American Vaudeville in the 1870s, where it was popularized by Johnny Allen.

Léotard, of course, invented the leotard. This simple one-piece garment allowed for the unrestricted movement which was so vital in his death-defying act. Later,  it would become standard wear for ballet dancers.

Léotard was paid a hundred and eighty pounds a week for his act, the equivalent of five thousand today, but died at age twenty-eight from an infectious disease and not from a fall.

Purloined in a lovely description for stealthy stealing. The end result of “purloin,” is that the object is gone, stolen, lifted, pilfered, embezzled, or pilfered or swiped. “but the style or manner of the crime varies with the term. They terms all have shades of meanings. “Pilfering” or “filching” is a hidden crime. A “heist” is a major theft that often involves George Clooney or Frank Sinatra.

One famous use of the word “purloin” is found in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story written in 1845, “The Purloined Letter”. It was one of three works that were forerunners to the modern detective story.  The Origin and Etymology of the word seems to be from Middle English, to put away, misappropriate, derived from the Anglo-French purluigner.

 

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment

The Hoosier Poet

 

 

 

 

VIDEO AUDIO
FALSE COVER OF POEMS OF CHILDHOOD  COVER OF POEMS OF CHILDHOOD
FALSE Pictures of Riley
FALSE TOMB STATUE
FALSE ILLUSTRATION OF STORY TELLING. An’  the Gobble-uns ‘ill git you. ef you don’t watch out.
FALSE These words from his famous poem about LIttle Orpant Annie framed the entire career of this famous Hoosier poet)
FALSE Pictures of Riley NARRATOR
FALSE
FALSE Log cabin and Greenfield footage James Whitcomb Riley, like Abe Lincoln,  was born in a log cabin. He was born in the heartland of the Indiana farmland near the town of Greenfield eleven years before the American Civil War began.
FALSE James was born on Oct 7, 1849, which was, by coincidence, the same day that Edgar Allan Poe died.
FALSE Video of Main Street today
FALSE
FALSE old Main street Main Street  in Greenfield was the National Road that wound through farms and forested lands on its way to California and points West
FALSE Reuben pix Riley’s father, Reuben, was a lawyer and politician.
FALSE RILEY PHOTOS
FALSE CAPITOL Greenfield was but a day’s ride from the capital city in Indianapolis.
FALSE
FALSE national road In 1848, the year before James was born, his father Reuben was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana House of Representatives. Reuben became good friends with James Whitcomb, the 8th governor of Indiana, so he named his second son after him.
FALSE
FALSE Pic of  Liz or gravestone and kitchen footage from house. His mother, Elizabeth, was a story teller who wrote poetry as well. She baked in a hearth oven and sometimes wrote her poetry at the kitchen table while and raising her growing bevy of children.
FALSE HOUSE IN GREENFIELD
FALSE When Riley was still quite young, his father began building another home for the family in Greenfield. This is the home where James grew up.
FALSE
FALSE GWEN BETOR SHOWING LIVING AREA It is now open as a museum and manned by historical society volunteers who take thousands of visitors on tours every year.
FALSE
FALSE James schooling was sporadic. He did not graduate the eighth grade  until he was twenty-one in 1869.

His mother taught him to read and write at home, but he eventually went to a local schoolhouse.

Riley was the first to admit that his schooling had suffered. He did not know much about mathematics, or science, as he was not interested in these things.
FALSE
FALSE His parents began to worry that James would never amount to much. He   simply would not learn history, science or mathematics.
FALSE
FALSE A teacher once asked him where Columbus sailed on his second voyage and Riley replied that he did not even know where he sailed on his first voyage,

Riley was fond of saying, “I don’t take no credit fer my ignorance – jest born that-a-way,.”
FALSE
FALSE LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE WAS ONE OF RILEY’S FAMOUS CHILDREN POEMS. IT WAS WRITTEN ABOUT A HIRED GIRL NAMED MARY ALICE SMITH THAT CAME TO WORK FOR HIS PARENTS WHEN HE WAS YOUNG. WE HAVE AN OLD RECORDING OF RILEY READING THIS POEM:
FALSE CLIP OF FURNISHINGS … NO CHILDREN ALLOWED TO MESS IT UP
FALSE JAMES WAS FEARFUL OF THE SPACE IN THE ATTIC WHERE TWO EYES OF LIGHT SHOWED THROUGH FROM HOLES IN THE ROOFING.
FALSE
FALSE CLIP OF TOUR GUIDE TALKING ABOUT RILEY’S SCHOOLING GUIDE: James tried to please his father and study the law books but his mind just kept wandering.   Those poems just kept jumping in this head, and when he grew up Reuben couldn’t understand why he did not grow out of this phase. Poetry was a thing back then. Both His Mother and Dad did it, but then they grew up and they stopped.  James  didn’t like to work, he was a daydreamer, he liked to go outside and wander around. When James became big, what did those people see he him?  He’s a lazy guy.
FALSE
FALSE RILEY PHOTO AND PICTURES OF BOOKS FOR A LAZY GUY, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY SURELY KEPT HIMSELF BUSY WRITING BOOKS AND COLLECTIONS OF POETRY.
TRUE  
TRUE When Riley was ten the first library was opened in Greenfield. He developed a real love for literature.
TRUE James and his friends  became friends with the librarian who told them stories and read them poems. One of James’ favorite authors was Charles Dickens . Some of his poems were inspired by Dickens, such as “CHRISTMAS SEASON’  and GOD BLESS US EVERY ONE.
TRUE MISC STILLS Poetry was not just an exotic taste in literature in Riley’s day.  It was read by the common men and women of the nation. Poetry offered the reader a form of self-reflection, an expression of  their personal hopes and aspirations. It was printed in of newspapers and read by public speakers.  Poetry served as entertainment for the masses. In Riley’s time, reading poetry was as common as watching television or clicking on Internet websites.
FALSE Fairbanks Tea Party photo Riley was known as a humorist and a prankster. One of his pranks may have had the effect of electing William Howard Taft to be President of the United States. President Roosevelt was a friend of Riley’s. A t a famous tea party in Indianapolis, Riley reportedly spiked the punch. The Hoosier Vice President, Charles Warren Fairbanks got tipsy at the party and gained the reputation of being a ‘lush’ during a time of prohibition sentiment. As a result, Fairbanks was passed over as Teddy Roosevelt’s pick for vice president and Taft was picked instead. Taft later succeeded Roosevelt to the Presidency.
FALSE Mark Twain ) said James Whitcomb Riley’s “Old Soldier’s Story”  was the funniest story he ever listened to and considered Riley America’s number one humorist.
FALSE “I heerd an awful funny thing the other day – Ha! Ha! I don’t know whether I kin git it off or not, but, anyhow, I’ll tell it to you. Well! – let’s see now how the fool thing goes.
FALSE Oh, yes! Why, there was a feller one time – it was during the army and this feller that I started in to tell you about was in the war and – Ha! Ha! – there was a big fight agoin’ one, and this feller was in the fight, and it was a big battle and bullets aflyin’ ever’ which way, and bombshells abustin’ and cannon balls aflyin’ ‘round promiscuous; and this feller right in the midst of it, you know, and all excited and heated up, and chargin’’ away; and the first thing you know along comes a cannon-ball and shot his head off – Ha! Ha! Ha!
FALSE Hold on here a minute! No, sir! I’m agettin’ ahead of my story.
FALSE No No! It didn’t shoot his head off. I’m gettin’ ahead of my story.
FALSE Shot his leg off. That was the way. Shot his leg off.
FALSE And down the poor feller dropped and of course in that condition was perfectly helpless, you know. But he did have the presence of mind enough to know that he was in a dangerous condition if something wasn’t done for him right away.

So he seen a comrade achargin’ by that he knowed, and he hollers to him and called him by name – I don’t remember now what the feller’s name was… Well, that’s got nothin’ to do with the story anyway.
FALSE He hollers at him, he did, and says, “Hello, there,” he says to him; “Here! I want you to come here and give me a lift. I got my leg shot off and I want you to pack me back to the rear of the battle.” That’s where the doctors is during a fight you know.
FALSE And he says, “I need attention or I’m a dead man for I got my leg shot off,” he says, “and I want you to pack me back there so’s the surgeons can take care of me.”

Well – the feller, as luck would have it, recognized him and run to him and throwed down his own musket so’s he could pick him up.
FALSE And he stooped down and picked him up and kind of half-way shouldered him and half-way held him between his arms like, and then he turned and started back with him – Ha! Ha!
FALSE Now, mind, the fight was still agoin’ on – and right at the hot of the fight, and the feller all excited you know like he was, and the soldier that had his leg shot off getting kinda fainty like, and his head kinda stuck back over the feller’s shoulder that was carryin’ him.
FALSE  
FALSE And the most curious thing about it was – Ha! Ha! – that the feller was apackin’ him didn’t know that he had been hit again at all, and back he went – still carryin’ the deceased back – Ha! Ha! Ha! – to where the doctors could take care of him – as he thought.
FALSE Well, his captain happened to see him, and he thought it was a rather curious proceedings – a solder carryin’ a dead body out of the fight – don’t you see?
And so the captain hollers at him, and he says to the soldier the captain did. He says, “Hello there. Where you goin’ with that thing?” That is what the captain said to the solder who was acarryin’ away the feller that had his leg shot off. Well, his head too, by that time.
FALSE “So he says, “Where you going with that thing?”
FALSE Well the soldier he stopped – kinda halted – you know like a private soldier will when his presidin’ officer speaks to him – and he says to him, “Why,” he says, “Cap. It’s a comrade of mine and the poor feller has got his leg shot off, and I’m a packin’ him back to where the doctors is . And there was nobody to help him, and the feller would have died in his tracks – or track rather – if it hadn’t been for me. I’m packin’ him back where the surgeons can take care of him, where he can get medical attendance or else his wife’s a widow for sure,” he says.
FALSE Then captain says, “You blame fool you. He’s got his head shot off.”

So then the feller slacked his grip on the body and let it slide down to the ground, and looked at it a minute, all puzzled, you know, and says, “Why he told me it was his leg!””
FALSE
FALSE One of the poems attributed to James Whitcomb Riley was never included in his published works.  It was called “The Passing of the Outhouse.”
FALSE      The older generations know what an outhouse is but perhaps the younger do not.  It is an outdoor toilet.  Every country home had an outhouse.
FALSE THE PASSING OF THE OUTHOUSE
FALSE James Whitcomb Riley
FALSE  
FALSE out house We had our posey garden
FALSE That the women loved so well.
FALSE I loved it too but better still
FALSE I loved the stronger smell
FALSE That filled the evening breezes
FALSE So full of homely cheer
FALSE And told the night-o’ertaken tramp
FALSE That human life was near.
FALSE On lazy August afternoons:
FALSE It made a little bower
FALSE passing 2 Delightful, where my grandsire sat
FALSE And whiled away an hour.
FALSE For there the summer morning
FALSE Its very cares entwined.
And berry bushes reddened
FALSE In the teeming soil behind.
FALSE All day fat spiders spun their webs
FALSE To catch the buzzing flies.
FALSE That flitted to and from the house
FALSE Where Ma was baking pies.
FALSE And once a swarm of hornets bold
FALSE Had built a palace there.
FALSE And stung my unsuspecting aunt –
FALSE I must not tell you where.
FALSE Then father took a flaming pole
FALSE That was a happy day –
FALSE He nearly burned the building up
FALSE But the hornets left to stay.
FALSE When summer bloom began to fade
FALSE And winter to carouse,
FALSE We banked the little building
FALSE With a heap of hemlock boughs.
FALSE But when the crust was on the snow
FALSE And the sullen skies were gray,
FALSE In sooth the building was no place
FALSE Where one could wish to stay.
FALSE We did our duties promptly;
FALSE There one purpose swayed the mind.
FALSE outhouse We tarried not nor lingered long
FALSE On what we left behind.
FALSE The torture of that icy seat
FALSE Would made a Spartan sob,
FALSE For needs must scrape the gooseflesh
FALSE With a lacerating cob.
FALSE That from a frost-encrusted nail
FALSE Was suspended by a string –
FALSE My father was a frugal man
FALSE And wasted not a thing.
FALSE When grandpa had to “go out back”
FALSE And make his morning call,
FALSE We’d bundled up the dear old man
FALSE With a muffler and a shawl.
FALSE I knew the hole on which he sat
FALSE Twas padded all around,
FALSE And once I dared to sit there;
FALSE Twas all too wide, I found.
FALSE passing 3 My loins were all too little
FALSE And I jack-knifed there to stay;
FALSE They had to come and get me out
FALSE Or I’d have passed away.
FALSE Then father said ambition
FALSE Was a thing small boys should shun,
FALSE And I must use the children’s hole
FALSE Till childhood days were done.
FALSE But still I marvel at the craft
FALSE That cut those holes so true;
FALSE The baby hole and the slender hole
FALSE That fitted Sister Sue.
FALSE That dear old country landmark!
FALSE I’ve tramped around a not
FALSE And in the lap of luxury
FALSE My lot has been to sit,
FALSE But ere I die I‘ll eat the fruit
FALSE Of trees I robbed of yore,
FALSE Then seek the shanty where my name
FALSE Is carved upon the door.
FALSE I ween the old familiar smell
FALSE Will soothe my jaded soul;
FALSE I’m now a man, but none the less
FALSE I’ll try the children’s hole.
FALSE The Old Swimmin’ Hole was a poem written by James Whitcomb Riley. H wrote it under the pen name “Benjamin F. Johnson of Boone County“. The poem was first published in 1883 as part of a book entitled The Old Swimmin’ Hole and ‘Leven More Poems. The poem is one of Riley’s most famous and perhaps the most  memorable. Riley reminisces about the Brandywine Creek where played with his friends during his boyhood. The poem has sold millions of copies.
FALSE Oh! the old swimmin’-hole! When I last saw the place,
FALSE The scenes was all changed, like the change in my face;
FALSE The bridge of the railroad now crosses the spot
FALSE Whare the old divin’-log lays sunk and fergot.
FALSE And I stray down the banks whare the trees ust to be—
FALSE But never again will theyr shade shelter me!
FALSE And I wish in my sorrow I could strip to the soul,
FALSE And dive off in my grave like the old swimmin’-hole.
FALSE James Whitcomb Riley loved children. Every year on Riley Day, the children from the Greenfield area have a parade and bring fresh cut flowers to the Riley statue, where they hand them to adults who decorate the statue with these cut flowers. So far as I know, this is a unique event.  What poet anywhere is revered and celebrated  with such enthusiasm and appreciation?

MUSINGS OF A LYRICIST

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment

 

It is said that writers “write to be read.”

Then painters paint to be seen, actors act to impress and singers sing to be heard.

If this is the case—and most often it is—the newer writers of the world are setting themselves up for great disappointment. They will not find the audience that they did in the past. They will not achieve the fame that others did in the past. They will quite likely not enjoy the riches that others have had In the past.

Technology and world Internet communications have obviously changed the world. Though it has democratized the ability to be read and seen and heard, by doing so it has practically eliminated the institutions that originally supported and brought culture to the world. Some vestiges of the old system remain, but they are losing ground with each passing year. They have been replaced by myriads of smaller, more democratized platforms that do not pay, do not develop and do not guide.

Moguls still control what is printed and sold in local stores. They chose the music that is allowed to be bought at box stores, the movies that are shown and the art that is displayed in museums and fine art shows. The competition for such space is fierce. The rewards to the artists have been drastically reduced from that it was just thirty years ago.

This leaves the would-be writer with a great dilemma. They feel that they have talent and should pursue an audience and readership, but the audience is slimmer and the finger of fate even more fickle than ever.

Only by applying a talent is the talent polished and sharpened. “Practice,” it is said, “makes perfect.” Perfection, though, is a subjective judgment that should be left out of that axiom. Practice makes us more exceptional. It is a fact, though, that natural talents of all kinds need to be performed and utilized to get beyond the level of the commonplace.

Writers now write blogs to keep their talents active and polished, but the readers of blogs are also a fickle lot. The individual blog does not really reach a substantial audience. Blogs and personal journals are worthy tools for a writer, as they can refer to them in the future, draw on them for ideas, and reference them for later promotion. There are few, if any, works that cannot be made better by multiple rewrites. So coming back to what you did before it quite valuable for the future.

Professional writing has not totally become extinct, but it is nearing that vanishing point. Professional writers are not free to write as their muse moves them, but are pressured to write what their superiors believe their readership wants to read.

Even with access to statistics that determine what people are choosing to read, the writer is often no longer free to follow their muse and write from the heart if they want to increase their following. Yet, writing from the heart and being true to your own voice is the only possible way to beat the odds. Only that will make you stand out in a crowd.

Even if you write from the heart, your heart and voice must be very special, very unique and quite original. Your perceived persona must be likable, strong and quite different from the masses. The vast majority of us will never be that person.

Chloe Thurlow recently spoke of  “the time before smartphones made the whole world a banal image and the photographer like the editor became a dinosaur.” https://www.facebook.com/chloe.thurlow.5?fref=ts

We have a changing dictum.

As writers, we must write for ourselves to be original. We will probably never make any financial profit from these efforts. Few in history ever have. We may not even achieve any large readership no matter how hard we try. Everyone has an opinion to share, a broken heart to express, a love that they feel they must share with the world about.

All lives are novels in the making.

The only thing we can do is persist or quit. Of course, if we quit, we never will have an audience. If we want an audience or a readership, our only alternative is to persist. To persist means to continue through depression and despair. It means we need to develop tools to combat and dispel our negative feelings. To persist means to struggle with the reality that we spend too much time doing things that we do not love in order to do what we do love.

It is easier to be a baker or a cook or a carpenter. All such work is creative, but the requirement of pleasing more than a few is not essential in many occupations.

Artists always had to pay their dues. The fees are even higher these days.

Inflation, you know.

HOW DOES THE UNIVERSE BEGIN?

/ Ken Finton / 4 Comments

 

sleep-paralysis-lucid-dream-e1297199806299

 

The hosting of awareness is something inherent in all things existent. This awareness of which I speak is the same awareness that you are using at this very moment. All awareness comes from and shares the same origin in the zero dimension. Awareness is the source of things, but awareness is not a thing. Neither is it nothing. It is what we might term the soul of the universe, not a material substance.

Awareness is invisible. It is not something that we can touch or measure, yet it is ever present even when we are not consciously aware of anything. Awareness is the observer that is awakened by reactions to objects from within and outside ourselves. These reactions to our inner and outer worlds create information that eventually organizes itself and becomes experience.

Awareness does not need the concept of time and space. It creates time and space when it awakens to stimulus from another. Awareness is all that is necessary for the building of a universe. Nature is the child of awareness.

I am aware of the existence of a universe around me. Other things that are not my being validly exist but I can never prove it unless the world outside me and my own conscious awareness are one and the same. If the universe outside me and my being are ultimately connected and the fundamental awareness that is present in both is one and the same, then both are logically substantiated. The per­ceptions I use to perceive my being are the same as those used to perceive the universe.

What we call the Now—this fleeting moment that seems to move through time and space—is the very embodiment of our human personal awareness. It is always present—a universal phenomenon that can be viewed from many points of reference.

Awareness is non-material. It is not a product of a nervous system any more than it is the product of the evolution of elemental interactions. That thing which makes you aware of yourself and the world around you is not unique to you personally, but the basic property that creates the geometry and form of all things existent. Awareness has evolved an unconscious network of differentiated components that build and project an actualized world into our locally personalized world and the universe about us. The business of physical sciences is showing how this happens in a physical manner.

When we examine the material world for evidence of its history, we discover things that are both previously unknown and surprising. These things exist independently of our perception, just as the world exists independently of our perception. Why is this so if we are all of the same elemental awareness?

Each of us has our own constantly changing version of that which we are aware. It is composed of what we have been taught and what we have learned both consciously and unconsciously.

Primal awareness is the precursor of consciousness. Interactions are observations and they create the world through interaction, which is the same as observation, materializing matter from a field of primal energy, forcing time into existence by slowing the speed of light.

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_state /react-text )

In quantum physics, a virtual state is a very short-lived, unobservable quantum state. In many quantum processes a virtual state is an intermediate state, sometimes described as “imaginary” in a multi-step process that mediates otherwise forbidden transitions. Such is the state of the universe before the actualization of dimensional realities.

Whywecannotseegod0.png

The first step in actualizing an outside world is the creation of dimensional awareness. The first dimension has no time and space. It is simply a point that exists everywhere and nowhere simultaneously, as there is no time nor space nor observer with which to measure and define it. It cannot react until it is duplicated and reacts to movement and touch,

The second dimension records the point in motion. Movement creates spacetime, which until that movement took place, never existed. A line is composed of many clones of that individual point. All points are the same point. The prototype line also exists everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.  Space is defined by the measurement of duration. The entanglements of electrons are possible because they exist in the second dimension, everywhere at once without time’s duration. They materialize when observed and remain in a physical timeline,

It is through the ‘observation’ of itself, perhaps by touch, that a point becomes a line. This second dimension is the birth of the finite. It creates a process of a beginning and an ending. It creates an observed, closed system.

The only way a point can be influenced by itself is to clone itself into many points, all of which are the same point, and then move in a curved line that comes back to its beginning location. This creates a closed, circular system or orbit. Only at this moment is there an inside and an outside. What is inside is virtual energy and empty, unused fields of possibility. What is outside is the undifferentiated awareness of the zero dimension.

With the third dimension, we have the birth of the unconscious mind from the formless, undifferentiated primal awareness. This awareness unconsciously observes the two-dimensional closed circle from above and adds the dimension of height to the width and length of the two-dimensional circle, creating what appears to be a sphere by the act of awareness observing a circle from above in three dimensions.

Light itself, the photon, is one-dimensional and has no experience of time and duration. Light gets to its destination as soon as it leaves. We are in the 4th dimension. This dimension gives duration and time to light and we perceive light as traveling for many light years to reach us, but the photon does not experience time and duration. This is relativity. By the same process, electrons, being in the primary dimensions, can be many places at once and are not fixed until they interact and are observed. This is quantum mechanics.

The fourth dimension emerges as the duration of time is observed and merges with space as duration—and spacetime is added to the primordial soup. As we live in the 3rd and 4th dimensions, our awareness seems to be locked into these dimensions, though more elementary existences—such as waves and particles— exist in the many dimensions.

In 1993, the physicist Gerard ‘t Hooft put forward the holographic principle, which explains that the information about an extra dimension is visible as a curvature in a spacetime with one fewer dimension. For example, holograms are three-dimensional pictures placed on a two-dimensional surface, which gives the image a curvature when the observer moves. Similarly, in general relativity, the fourth dimension is manifested in observable three dimensions as the curvature path of a moving infinitesimal (test) particle. Hooft has speculated that the fifth dimension is really the spacetime fabric.

If this is so, then we may live in the 5th dimension as well, but we cannot perceive it with our senses, as we cannot perceive any of the larger dimensions by virtue of our physical senses.

 

penteract_projected

A perspective projection of a five-dimensional penteract

 

 

 

What Is Entanglement Anyway? Chris Fields

 

Entanglement or non-separability is the core idea of quantum theory. It is a simple idea: the universe is not a bunch of independent parts, but is rather one entity that evolves through time as one entity. That’s it. The problem is that this means there’s no such thing as causation. This is very hard to wrap your head around. Quantum theory is extraordinarily accurate, and our knowing quantum theory is why we have things like cell phones and computers. But what is quantum theory, really? Why is entanglement its primary prediction? This talk will explain what quantum theory is. It will show that quantum theory has nothing to do with tiny particles, wave-function collapse, or Schroedinger’s cat. Quantum theory is about how observers obtain information about the world. It is, in particular, about how observers who have memories and use language obtain information about the world. It is, in other words, about how you and I interact with perfectly ordinary things like tables and chairs and each other. You will leave this talk with a new understanding of quantum theory, and a new appreciation for entanglement. Chris Fields is an interdisciplinary information scientist interested in both the physics and the cognitive neuroscience underlying the human perception of objects as spatially and temporally bounded entities. His current research focuses on deriving quantum theory from classical information theory; he also works on cell-cell communication and cellular information processing, the role of the “unconscious mind” in creative problem solving, and early childhood development, particularly the etiology of autism-spectrum conditions. He and his wife, author and yoga teacher Alison Tinsley, recently published Meditation: If You’re Doing It, You’re Doing It Right, in which they explore the experience of meditation with meditators from many walks of life. Dr. Fields has also been a volunteer firefighter, a visual artist, and a travel writer. He currently divides his time between Sonoma, CA and Caunes Minervois, a village in southwestern France.

THE HUNZA PEOPLE OF NORTH PAKISTAN

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment

http://www.readgang.com/2016/03/they-never-get-sickthey-dont-know-about.html

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LEGEND HAS IT THAT THESE ARE THE PEOPLE OF SHANGRI-LA

Is living well past 100 years only a dream?  Not in Northern Pakistan.

They, like many in Northern Pakistan, claim to be descendants of the soldiers who came to the region with Alexander the Great‘s army in the 4th century BC.

Healthy living advocate J. I. Rodale wrote a book called The Healthy Hunzas in 1955 that asserted that the Hunzas, noted for their longevity and many centenarians, were long-lived because of their consumption of healthy organic foods such as dried apricots and almonds, as well as their getting plenty of fresh air and exercise.[21] He often mentioned them in his Prevention magazine as exemplary of the benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle.

Dr. John Clark stayed among the Hunza people for 20 months and in his book Hunza – Lost Kingdom of the Himalayas[22] writes: “I wish also to express my regrets to those travelers whose impressions have been contradicted by my experience. On my first trip through Hunza, I acquired almost all the misconceptions they did: The Healthy Hunzas, the Democratic Court, The Land Where There Are No Poor, and the rest—and only long-continued living in Hunza revealed the actual situations”. Regarding the misconception about Hunza people’s health, John Clark also writes that most of the patients had malaria, dysentery, worms, trachoma, and other things easily diagnosed and quickly treated; in his first two trips, he treated 5,684 patients.

Clark reports that the Hunza do not measure their age solely by the calendar––as he also said there were no calendars––but also by personal estimation of wisdom. This leads in turn to notions of typical lifespans of 120 or greater.

The October 1953 issue of National Geographic had an article on the Hunza River Valley that inspired Carl Barks’ story Tralla La.[23] Their standard of living is totally different from the others. Barks said,  “the healthy way of that kind of living should be an example to us.”

THE HUNZA LIFESTYLE

Hunza people are people who take a bath in cold water, and they can give birth to a baby at 65 years.

In summer, they eat only raw foods and in winter they use dry fruits, especially apricots, germinated seeds, and cheese from sheep.

”Hunger spring” is called the period when they are fasting, then they do not eat anything except the drink clean water.

From 2 to 4 months they drink that water and consume the apricot seeds.

One of the Hunza people, known worldwide as Said Abdul Mobuda, totally confused the workers for immigration services when he pulled out his passport which stated that he has lived 160 years. They did not believe him until they checked that the man is really born 160 years ago and that in his village all the people have a long lifetime.

THEIR GENETIC LINE

A variety of Y-DNA haplogroups are seen among the Burusho. Most frequent among these are R1a1 and R2a, which probably originated in Central Asia during the Upper Paleolithic.[17][18] R2a, unlike its extremely rare parent R2, R1a1, and other clades of haplogroup R, is now virtually restricted to South Asia. Two other typically South Asian lineages, haplogroup H1 and haplogroup L3 (defined by SNP mutation M20) are also common among the Burusho.[19] [18]

Other Y-DNA haplogroups reaching considerable frequencies among the Burusho are haplogroup J2, associated with the spread of agriculture in, and from, the Neolithic Near East,[17][18] and haplogroup C3, of Siberian origin and possibly representing the patrilineage of Genghis Khan. Also present at lower frequency are haplogroups O3, an East Eurasian lineage, and Q, P, F, and G.[18] DNA research groups the male ancestry of the Hunza with speakers of Pamir languages and the Sinti Romani (Gypsies), due primarily to the M124 marker (defining Y-DNA haplogroup R2a), which is present at high frequency in all three populations.[8] However, they have also an East Asian genetic contribution, suggesting that at least some of their ancestry originates north of the Himalayas.[20]

“You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” by Bob Dylan

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment
  • The likely influence on this song was Dylan’s 1967 motorcycle accident, which severely limited his mobility. The song was recorded in the basement of a house where members of The Band lived, and played with Dylan while he experimented with new sounds. The Basement Tapes album was not officially released until 1975, but the songs were circulated and this one drew the attention of The Byrds, who released it on their 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. (thanks, Tom – Marble Falls, AR)
  • The Byrds released “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” as the first single off the album peaking at #45 in the US and #74 in the UK.

 

“You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”

-Bob Dylan

Clouds so swift
Rain won’t lift
Gate won’t close
Railings froze
Get your mind of wintertime
You ain’t goin’ nowhere
Whoo-ee ride me high
Tomorrow’s the day
My bride’s gonna come
Oh, oh, are we gonna fly
Down in the easy chair !I don’t care
How many letters they sent
Morning came and morning went
Pick up your money
And pack up your tent
You ain’t goin’ nowhere
Whoo-ee ride me high
Tomorrow’s the day
My bride’s gonna come
Oh, oh, are we gonna fly
Down in the easy chair !

Buy me a flute
And a gun that shoots
Tailgates some substitutes
Strap yourself
To the tree with roots
You ain’t goin’ nowhere
Whoo-ee ride me high
Tomorrow’s the day
My bride’s gonna come
Oh, oh, are we gonna fly
Down in the easy chair !Genghis Khan
He could not keep
All his kings
Supplied with sleep
We’ll climb that hill no matter how steep
When we come up to it
Whoo-ee ride me high
Tomorrow’s the day
My bride’s gonna come
Oh, oh, are we gonna fly
Down in the easy chair !

“My Back Pages” – Bob Dylan

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment

“My Back Pages” is a song written by Bob Dylan and included on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan. It is stylistically similar to his earlier folk protest songs and features Dylan’s voice with an acoustic guitar accompaniment. However, its lyrics—in particular the refrain “Ah, but I was so much older then/I’m younger than that now”—have been interpreted as a rejection of Dylan’s earlier personal and political idealism, illustrating his growing disillusionment with the 1960’s folk protest movement with which he was associated, and his desire to move in a new direction. Although Dylan wrote the song in 1964, he did not perform it live until 1978.

Bob Dylan wrote “My Back Pages” in 1964 as one of the last songs—perhaps the last song—composed for his Another Side of Bob Dylan album.[1] He recorded it on June 9, 1964, under the working title of “Ancient Memories”, the last song committed to tape for the album.[1] The song was partly based on the traditional folk song “Young But Growing“[1] and has a mournful melody similar to that of “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” from Dylan’s previous album, The Times They Are a-Changin’.[2] As with the other songs on Another Side, Dylan is the sole musician on “My Back Pages” and plays in a style similar to his previous protest songs, with a sneering, rough-edged voice and a hard-strumming acoustic guitar accompaniment.[3][4]

In the song’s lyrics, Dylan criticizes himself for having been certain that he knew everything and apologizes for his previous political preaching, noting that he has become his own enemy “in the instant that I preach.”[2][5][6] Dylan questions whether one can really distinguish between right and wrong, and even questions the desirability of the principle of equality.[7] The lyrics also signal Dylan’s disillusionment with the 1960s protest movement and his intention to abandon protest songwriting.[5][6][8] The song effectively analogizes the protest movement to the establishment it is trying to overturn,[4] concluding with the refrain:

Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

BITTERSWEET

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment

by Kenneth Harper Finton

Bitteresweet

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe I am jaded now

or just too old to cry.

All the tears I’ve shed before

Have left my eyes quite dry.

Friends have come and friends have gone, 

how bittersweet is nature.

Work is really never done,

wars are really never won, 

lives are always left undone,

success is never measured.

Blisters used to pain my hands

’til callouses replaced them.

Caring always filled my days,

’til lack of it displaced it.

Friends have come and friends have gone, 

how bittersweet is nature.

Work is really never done,

wars are really never won, 

lives are always left undone,

success is never measured.

Living always pleasured me

and sorrow seldom ailed me,

but Father Time has dried me out

and left no room for wailing.

Friends have come and friends have gone, 

how bittersweet is nature.

Work is really never done,

wars are really never won, 

lives are always left undone,

success is never measured.

BEAR’S MILL

/ Ken Finton / 3 Comments

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When I was a child I lived about twelve miles from Bear’s Mill. In the  summer I would occasionally ride my bike down the gravel backroads that led from my home to the mill. I would spend some time sticking my hot feet in the  cool waters and watching the waters fall hypnotically over the dam.

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At that time, the mill was still a working mill run by a miller that got to know me and my bike from the frequent trips I made. I had one of the first thin-tired Schwinn bikes with three gears in the county. They were called English bikes at the time. The narrow tires made the bike hard to control on the graveled roads.

I know that 99.9% of the people will never get to Bear’s Mill. It matters little, as it is worth knowing about. That is why I write this. I will probably never get to the pyramids, but I still find them of great and abiding interest.

BEAR'S MILL

It is not that Bear’s Mill is one of the great wonders of the world that everyone needs to see. It is simply an historic grist mill in Darke County near Greenville, Ohio, the oldest existing industrial building in the county. It was built in 1849 after settlers had cut the trees out of the Ohio wilderness and grew crops on the newly cleared lands. Before it was put into operation it was purchased from Manning Hart, the builder and contractor, by Gabriel Baer. The stones used for grinding the grains were not hard enough, so Baer traveled to France to purchase high quality milling stones that fit his purpose. The original name was Baer’s Mill, but somehow along the way Bear’s Mill became the referred spelling.

The wood siding on the mill has been in place since 1849. It is a hardwood lap siding made from American Black Walnut and has served the building for over 165 years. In the 1970’s the miller retired and turned the mill over to a non-profit organization called Friends of Bear’s Mill. They still use the mill occasionally to grind a limited amount of grain. The bottom floor now contains a gift shop and an art gallery for local midwest artists to show their works. In 1975 the mill was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is both a museum for milling history and a stopping place for tourists who are as fascinated with the mill race and the dam as I was as  a child.

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Remnants of the old Indian Toe Path run for half a mile along the creek. The visitors to the mill can take a mild, cooling walk in the summer sizzle where the pioneers and animals walked the hard nine miles to  the settlement at old Fort Green Ville.

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An overlook has been built along the creek by the ancient pathway where deer and panthers once roamed and fed.

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The steeple of the Darke County Courthouse failed and was replaced in the 1980’s. The old steeple was moved to Bear’s Mill to serve as a memorial to the Viet Nam veterans that died in that horrible war.

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The names of the men who died are tagged on the plaque, including one classmate of mine, Gerry Greendyke who never made it home. My classmates and I owe a debt to Gerry and the others that we can never repay. He took our place in the war. He was the one that was killed while we went on to live our own lives. Some came home and many did not. So it is with wars and the young men who fight and die in them.

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Away from the memorial, the  woods along the creek remain as they have been for many thousands of years. A cleared path allows the visitors to walk unobstructed in the same spots as ancient mound builders walked ten thousand years ago when the ice sheets were melting and the rivers of Ohio took shape. The birds tweet and the young folk Twitter. And the water, as always, flows forever to the sea.

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Click to make the water run on the video.