What!? Out!?

...the silence in my mind woke me up.

"Am I still asleep?", I asked myself, then I saw daylight by the windows and heard the usual sounds going on in the house, but...

... in my mind, SILENCE, a terrifying stillness, not a single note of "Vesti la Giubba" or "E lucevan le Stelle" in the shivery voice of the Elf; after so long with him living in there I was so much used to all the ruckus produced by this unrestrained imp that the unexpected stillness upset me deeply!




I started to run around my mind, looking under some notions scattered on the floor, looked about the archives and the files with crescent alarm, even disturbed some ideas, arranged alphabetically and with a small tag reading: "tbust" (to be used "somewhen" tomorrow, this is Elf doing, his concept of order and time, go figure!), and there was no sign of Elf!

Elf

With all the strength of my silent mindvoice I cried: "EEEEEEEELF!" I was frantic!! and in despair.
The noise I was doing almost makes me lose the small sound reaching up from far away: "cooomiiing!"
What's that? coming? how come? coming from where?, my mind is surrounded by solid walls, as any other mind! He could not be coming, he should be into! I was reasonably sure he was not inside my mind.
It is a very cluttered mind (Elf doing, not mine), I had wandered from wall to wall several times looking for the wretched goblin and could not find him. Then again, how he came in the first time? I assumed he was born here! I was totally confused!

Then from far away the little voice, this time a bit stronger: "coomMIING!" and lo! from a obscure recess of the far wall there appears the familiar small shape of my Nemesis.

"You!" I stuttered, "you, little, short piece of a small, wretched son of a pistol!"
Sometimes I can be very creative in my abuse.

"Where have you been hiding, how can you hide into my mind?! I run the whole darn thing up and down and you move so fast I couldn't find you!"

"Steady, dud!", he said, "you'll work yourself into a heart condition!"

"I want to make a sailor knot with your skinny neck!"

"Hey man", he countered, "what makes you think you own me?! I can do whatever I want and it is no business of no one...!" (He sounded angry, and when angry he forgets his grammar, if he has ever learned one!)

I had to recognize he was right, my anger came from the belief that he has gone forever. Can you believe it? I like the miserable little fellow!

"Ok, ok", I said letting down steam, "but where were you hiding?"

"I wasn't..."

"How come?"

"Now, I shouldn't be saying this to you but the one who cannot leave his mind is you. I can go out into another mind to visit my cousins living there. Or go out to the Universe at large and visit some other... well, let's say, people."

"You kidding!"

"No, I am not!!!"

Angrily he took the biggest idea he found at hand and wrapped it around his little figure leaving me alone and totally confused.

He said, he was out! Out! Is it possible...?


We are listening to a fragment of the song "Alone" by Kenny G.


© 2008Od Liam.

The accidental electron

Elf sat comfortably between two of my best thoughts. Since I discovered him living in my mind, he always uses the best sites to place himself.

"Ok", Elf said, "go ahead and tell me about the accidental electron."

I almost pointed to this gaffe saying:

Elf

"So you do not know about it", but knowing he would find an answer for his blunder just ordered my thoughts, avoided his mass, picked up the thought at his left and started:

"In the beginning..."

"You sound biblical", prompted the goblin.

"Stop interrupting me!" I yelled at his presence.

He just spread his hands soothing my axons.

"Well", I went on, "in the beginning Earth was a primeval soup, magma and lava boiling in a unique mass of fire. Awesome storms bellowed from the foggy sky accompanied by furious lighting and growling thunder."

"In this hellish place under an indescribable atmospheric pressure a few atomic particles found a way to get together creating a plasma, drifting in the soup, handled by incredible strong forces interacting with it."

"It was just a detached piece from the soup but nothing more, the only difference was structural, a mindless form in a mindless medium."

"And then..."

"What!, what!", cried the irrepressible imp.

"Then, a thunderbolt pierced the charged atmosphere of the planet disrupting the tenuous tissue of gases forming the space between molten rock and heavy sky, it discharged an immense quantum of energy just over the small plasma which was squashed by an accidental electron expelled by the blast that immediately disarranged and rearranged the atomic relationship of the plasma and surrounded it with a new and qualified environment not known until this very moment. In this new havoc and as direct effect of the incredible amount of energy discharged plus the chaotic characteristics of Earth at the moment, this chance electron was capable of creating a frightful and wonderful new being."

"Now there was a mindless medium but alone, floating in the atrocious surface of the planet, there was LIFE ready to climb up the stairs of evolution."

Elf was dazed.

It was the first time I saw him speechless, he couldn't find a word to show he knew what I was telling him or worse yet, invent some flourish commentary to make me feel he knows everything.

"But, but", he stammered. After a terrible effort he could just blurt the first thing coming into his mind, if he has one.

"But, but where was God?"

"God?" I query..., "I do not know", I added nonplussed, "maybe He was throwing down the thunderbolts!"

Khachaturian's "Masquerade: Waltz" by London Symphony Orchestra and Stanley Black.



© 2008 Od Liam

Elf and I (or would it be better: Him and me?)

I said aloud:

"There is this theory about the 'chance electron', or more scientifically said 'accidental electron'".

Elf, of course

Elf, who live in my mind looked flabbergasted, which is a very uncommon occurrence since he always seems to know everything. Trying to gain some foothold before I were overruled by the little imp and his theories I pressed on:

"Have you heard about it?"

Even if it was evident he has not heard about it, he recomposed rapidly and interposed:

"It is nothing, really!"

I felt chagrined, would this creature never recognize not knowing everything?

"Oh Ok", I taunted him, "then it is not worth to discuss it".
No answer.
"It was interesting anyhow", I proceed.
Silence.

Darn his socks! I thought this aside and very low, "punning" my pun!. Sometimes it is difficult to speak to myself without his meddling. I did not want him to hear me.

"Are you there?", I gave up at last. "Why the silence?"
"Just meditating", he said.

Meditating, meditating! Where, by the wood of the main door to hell, does he find these long breathed words! What have he against thinking? Not the same? Ok, but I bet he doesn't know the difference, either!

"What about?" as always he was getting on my nerves!
"The accidental electron theory". This dropped nonchalantly!
"Tell me about it", I said and thought: "Gotcha!"
"No", he retorted, "you better spin the yarn so I can make corrections when needed".
There you are, I will never win! He knows me better. Sometimes I think he knows my thoughts before I think them!

"Ok", I said, "lets see, it all begin with..."

"Wait", he interrupted, and settled down between two of my ideas, sinking in the spot as if it were a soft armchair, "close here and start anew".

So I am doing...

We are listening to "Marriage d'Amour" by Paul de Senneville


© 2008 Od Liam.

Question

What's hiding behind a smile?

Listen how life could be a dream!




[This little gem from the middle fifties is: Sh-Boom recorded by The Crew Cut]

© 2008 Od Liam.

Elf

Elf

It was there, in my mind, since I opened my eyes to the world.
It was a silent and free presence.
I didn't understand his 'raison d'etre' until it was time to learn,
then he opened his mouth and I regretted the moment forever!
"I am Elf!", he said.
"Who?", I asked in an unoriginal way.
"My job is to display your mistakes... ethic, moral and general mistakes!"
"Your job is..." I stuttered. My confusion was piling over itself!
"You'll see", he told me sprawling his small figure over one of my brighter ideas, and there are not many of them, to be sure, "we'll be close friends".

"Elf song" from Fairyland sang by the Fairy Estimation Choir


© 2008 Od Liam.

Ego Sum

I was curled up somewhere in a cozy den.
Then it started...
Could not refuse the compulsion of accepting this strange force
that pushed me.
But it was not easy!

Was I afraid?
Of course! what else these inner quivers in my self could mean?
I saw the exterior luminescence and decided to face it.
There it was, that thing called "I", wrapped in panic vapors,
almost deaf by the howl of the echo of my thoughts, facing nothing.
Insanity of being!
Wonder of belonging!
I am alive! I was born!



Lullaby by Brahms.

© 2008 Od Liam.

Do you open your eyes?

Silly question!! Of course I open my eyes!

Not that silly, blind people open their eyes, too.

It does not warrant you see. It only prove you can exercise your eyelids muscles.

Confused

Reality is less real than it tries to make us believe, and it is only because we are trying to understand the system we live in with our brains, which are part of the very system.

Something like if we would try to lift our body taking it from our ankles. You must be outside the system to have a chance to change it somehow.

How about having a mind outside the brain? outside the system. Yes, it could be useful but there is a catch. This mind must use the brain as instrument to its designs and then, in we go into the system again!

Beautiful! so we cannot "understand" our reality. Maybe, to make it clear and following the best way of Univac and in its metallic voice we hear the question: "Define «understand»"

Under stand: To be upright on one's feet on something which is below, a base.
To have a support for knowing.

There is no way we can have a support for knowing reality.

We can only "know" reality from the information we receive from our five senses into our brain, and you know they, the senses, are unreliable and it, the brain, is judge and part.

How near is near?, how warm is love? How silly am I? What color is your time?

All this seems so inconsistent, I can touch things and people, I can feel feelings, that "must" be reality!, then again, I can have dreams which are so "real" I can vow they really happened.

Conclusion: We can experience reality, we cannot understand it.

Science says it can "understand", can it? or does it only "interpret" it?

Words, again we are in the need of definitions. The never-ending game of life!



"Torn Apart" Piano beat by Dansonn

© 2008 Od Liam.

Explaining the unexplainable

Can you hear the inner voice?

It is always asking...
Those questions, that inquisitive probing. The old "W" queries.

Reality is a foggy sea where our selves sail, each one of us in a different boat.

Some are full of lights and contraptions to send signals, other with just a positioning light and a small flag. Others again not even wearing those scanty tools.

We drift along.

Sometimes we are so near one another we think we can communicate and start to send frantic signals from our decks.

From the other boat seems as if there was an understanding and it sends signals back.

After a while we feel we are communicated, but are we?

Up to a point, maybe, enough to drift along, to feel we are not utterly alone, it is possible to exchange tokens, but we cannot, ever, to board the other boat, to feel the "other" reality.

Questions stand alive, scorching us as a burning iron:

Why am I estranged this way?
What is the reason of this severe exclusion?
How can I feel other people feelings, share their tenets, know what "red" means, really means, in their minds, and why I cannot do it?!

Cool!

Like it or not we must treasure second best, that poor imitations of true sharing: friendship, partnership, love, or worst yet "third best": hugs, kisses and that being so near but never near enough! Poor sad, frantic signals sent from our loneliness.

Is this all that there is? Is madness the ruler of this happenstance?
If you tell me that you believe this, I respect your belief, but is it all?

How I, or even you for that matter, know it is true.
Have you dived into the deep inners of your consciousness?
Have you probed all possibilities?, or this belief is only the product of disappointment, an expression of rage against the unassailable fortress of the unknown.

Do you think the unknown exists? Can I say I do not know the unknown and still look into my own feelings?

Seems so sad but no, it is not so...

Cheer up! in this reality there is no eternity, nothing is forever and that is good!



There is a real following of the text by the song "Under the Same Moon" from "Autumn Prelude" by Zero Project

© 2008 Od Liam.

At sea, far away...

This was home for some time.



Free space, great view of the sea, fish, salty smells, and waves.

Ninety five miles from mainland and solitude make the day to day chores important.

A babel of Portuguese, Indonesian, Chinese, Thai, some German, a tbsp. of Spanish, several flavors of English... and Pidgin, of course, and when all these failed the windmill of hand language; anything to get through in human communication.

Sometimes, father Poseidon wanted to know what were those weird biped doing on the platform, so it raised tall waves, asked Eolo to roar with high gales, and Zeus to send rain as a heavy curtain to clean the atmosphere and thunderbolts to see better. Awesome and scary, those who were not working on the deck ran downstairs to the cozy and covered entrails of the platform.

When the full moon started to rise on a calm sea everybody was on the deck, it was a sacred view. Casta diva in her pure splendor.

I wondered many times: we were coarse, hard men toiling in a difficult and dangerous task but the mystic of a full moon mesmerized us as if we were a bunch of poets with a sensible soul...

... but then again, maybe we were and we had it.


The song: "Beyond the Sea" a fragment performed by Celtic Women.

© 2008 Od Liam.

Love, that misconception

It is here, the silence, this blessed vacuum the world have forgotten. The expectation of what is to come...



The first score of "E lucevan le stelle" starts, without breaking the silence!
Oh! miracle of the sounds blended with stillness in a corporate spirit under the pale light of the stars. Recollection begins:

Even the creaking of the gate of the orchard when Floria arrives is a compound of anticipation.

Love is a misconception, selfless giving is nearer to love than to please or to be pleased. Floria's scent is a heady feeling, her languid rest in Mario's arms, the sweet kisses and the slow caresses, the feverish movements of Mario's hands divesting her of her veils make us think of LOVE, but it is only love.

Exhilarating, intoxicating love, the pleasure of contact, of possessing, of being possessed, to please, to be pleased, but not to give with no reward. Valid?, yes! Needed?, of course! Species require this!

But...

What is left if we accept this irrational notion?, this idea, crazy idea, of giving without waiting a reward! where is Romance?, the bitter-sweet pathos that gives life in that starred night, the last night of Mario's life, to the melancholic feeling of loss and belonging?

So love becomes Love, something in between, neither the whole LOVE, nor the unconscious "sarko", the half animal compulsion that keep us alive. Romanticism is saved, life is worth to be lived!

But time "fugit", time is an uncompromising vector born and lost in Eternity. It does not understand anything except flowing and Mario cannot stop the need of expressing his disappointment in losing life when he loved it most...


Aria "E lucevan le stelle" from Puccini's opera "Tosca" by Beniamino Gigli.

© 2008 Od Liam.

Read to dismiss dismal hours

The best way to be lost in reality is to keep a book open.

Today is a melancholic, slow paced day. I can see through the window patches of the garden already soaked, even if only a fine drizzle is coming down from a forbidden sky.

This drizzle has been painting the landscape with its wet small brushes for hours now. The sun, hiding its magnificent corolla from humankind behind the thick cover of low clouds, is a wraith in "firedom".

I feel alone but not lonely; seeking to disperse the foreboding this misty rain brings to my soul I went digging into my library and lo! in one of the small shelves, to the left, in the Fantasy classification tab I found:

Fredric Brown's From these Ashes

Back, back in time, out of the drizzle, out of the melancholic mood, out of this world, into reality of fiction, into illusion and mirth...

These are the soft and sweet notes of the Canon in D major by Johann Pachelbel performed by Richard Clayderman. Enjoy!


© 2008 Od Liam.

Legend of the ceibo tree

The conquistador marches with steady pace over the littoral. There is almost no defense for the decimated tribe. The warriors cling together around the lifeless body of the last chieftain. What can they do? Who can take command?

From the back of the forest a small figure condensed itself in front of the group, it is almost a girl yet. With a grieving countenance she approached the body while the surly men make room for her, she kneels and laying a flower on the dead chest exclaims in a high voice: "Your death would not remain unpunished, father!". The worried men looked each other, a question in their eyes, how? what promise can make this little young woman when no one of them feels confidence in their forces? But the girl stands and with the arm high over her head cry: Revenge!

The men feel they are dragged by a new power, now they will teach a lesson to the invader. The push emanating from the small girl reached out compromising the strangers' faith in their strength, daring and courage are loyal companions of our little heroine.

The conquistadores are powerful, finally they capture the indomitable little woman and seeking to teach a lesson to the rebels decide end her life cruelly in the stake. A twiggy weak tree, leafless and opaque is to serve as stake. The night looks impassible the terrible torment and an astounded dawn saw that the fire and the feminine body turned into a red corolla that crowned the tree and transformed it in a living memory of a brave soul when over the ground rises a ceibo in flower!


Sweet guarania that remembers the heroic "Anahi", the heroine of this tale sang by Amambay Cardozo Ocampo.



© 2008 Od Liam.

It is mine!

I own it! I say stubbornly!
I do not want to lose it.
But I cannot stop it!
Its existence is sheer energy.
It dissolves in my insides
to come back in a coalescent mist.
It wants to see the light, it deserves it.
Not because its qualities but only for being
I cling to it tenaciously, but it is too late
Here it is: My micro-tale


"The Flight of the Bumblebee" played by Zubin Mehta resembling the insanity of creativity.

© 2008 Od Liam.

Opera, main gate of Heaven

Opera, where Euterpes excels and takes the soul to pristine ecstasy in giving a totally different meaning to the last line of Tosca:

[Scarpia] Avanti a Dio!

Yes! to let music spread its charms into our heart is a way to be in the presence of God.


Finale of "Tosca" by the "Divina" Callas

© 2008 Od Liam.

Books, the indisputable harbingers of delight

Invaluable companions, preachers that in their fervor call for people loyal to Literature to come forth to venerate drama, comedy and fiction in communion with the elemental godhead that transcends the illusion of reality.


Classical Celta  "Fantasy Music - The Moth Chronicles."


© 2008 Od Liam.

Soliloquies

This is one of the best calisthenics to keep the mind sound and find out what there is, really there is, in the back recess of the thinking machine.

Differs from ranting (my definition of the word) in the simple fact that you have no interlocutor. You are by yourself and cannot be interrupted!

If you are not used to soliloquies, give them a try, you will find the best companion to sanity: Yourself!

Seems a " Mission: Impossible" but it is a very good exercise! Movie 's OSB


© 2008 Od Liam.

Ranting

This is the insane side of the mind, you expostulate, discuss, argue, convert ideas in weapons to use in the skirmishes held with your alter ego, in my case Elf, who lives in my mind since I remember but who has secrets of his own that I cannot fathom! He is not a Tolkien's Elf, quite the contrary, he is small, ugly, troublesome, and very much alive, but you will see him in the blog.

This meddlesome character maintains he belongs to a race with a mission: to live in human minds to check and steer them into the right path, whatever it is!, he claims he is the voice that crieth in the wilderness of my mind pointing to wrongness when I deviate my steps from rightness; as the bodysnatchers did every time they found a “clean” body.

If nothing else, the lively experience of discussion with this goblin will give you knowledge on how to handle very difficult subjects that not always you can discuss openly with other humans beings and will broad your mind, if you let it do so, not forgetting the funny side that will entertain you no end.

This wonderful waltz by Dmitry Shostakovitch, is a real company for the text.


© 2008 Od Liam.

Beliefs

These are those things you keep warm near your mind, it does not matter how true they are in other environments, in your Sancta Sanctorum they shine in their own glow, giving a cozy feeling to the ever present strife in our life.


The song "The one unforgivable sin" by Ballos, performed by Mikis Theodorakis frames the only thing against sin: Belief!

© 2008 Od Liam.

Let's start!

As always when we start a trip we try to organize our thoughts: What will we be talking about here?

It is not I do not know topics, it is only I want to keep track of everything and set limits so we can have a clear idea of where we are and go.

Even if categories or labels are self explaining, let's start explaining some of them.

While reading we can listen to Frank Sinatra delighting us with "As time goes by" written by Herman Hupfeld.


© 2008 Od Liam.

Welcome!

Thank you for visiting my blog!

Here you will find many disquisitions, and of course, you can agree or disagree with them.

Enjoy your stay and before leaving, please, let me know what you think of the site and about all you have seen, in any case, let me know your thoughts even if they are not related to the blog, and...

Come back soon!

© 2008 Od Liam.

[If you yielded to curiosity, are hearing the music, and want to know the name of this wonderful tune, it is: "Inspector Clouseau Theme" from the Pink Panther by Henry Mancini]