Yes, for that smooth finish be sure to ask for genuine Squabbler's Paste Wax. Or try the handy liquid in the new extra large bottle...

George and Gracie tonight over at Heavenly Days. I'll have a new show posted by 8 PM.

Tomorrow night Fibber's car is stolen in the next episode in the 1940 season of Fibber McGee and Molly.

Wednesday night will be drama night over at Heavenly Days. Stay tuned.

Well, I stay tuned anyway. I have a very comfortable chair near the large bay window in my library. Recently I had purchased two Euro designed desk chairs for the computer... 'bank.' I don't know what else to call it. I seem to collect computers. Four of them are lined up here. I still have my Windows 95 machine hooked up because all my writing is on it. Bloobs and Descent are also on it - two games I enjoy playing. I write on a Windows 98 Dell machine because it has the best WP program. That replaces my son's HP which he took back to his mother's house after I fixed it for him. Then there's the Acer, which is useless. This computer is also a Dell.

Where was I? Oh yes - the comfy chair. I sit down of an evening and listen to streaming Old Time Radio when many others are watching the evening news, or whatever. I am a creature of habit - as are we all, to whatever extent. I'm an early riser - 4 AM or so - so I'm abed by 10 or 11. Summertime with its longer days often finds me out of doors at my fire, however. Fire season is coming. It's been a bit wet so far.

There is a public park, (well, Village res only), where I am often swimming on a nice Summer day. This may extend into evening. Throw something on the grill. The keeper usually swims after dark, and so do I on those warm nights, sometimes with the boys, sometimes with whoever wants to stand by my fire. Usually, however, I'm right here.

Behind The White Lodge is the river valley. There's the floodplain down below. Across the miles are hills, undeveloped except for a single cell tower whose light blinks lazily. I know just where that is, over on Cornish Hill. That's the location of the other lodge. We don't go there.

I am very fortunate to live against the wetland. The front of the house faces the street, (although both the large formal shared entrance and my kitchen dooryard are secluded to the rear, with a long circular drive wrapping around). So the result is that the view through the front is of village and the view from the back is of wooded land unbroken by development as far as the eye can see. Call it best of both worlds if you like.

The effect is a little startling for visitors. Those in particular who are sensitive to transdimensional shifts find that we are on a fault line here. Sometimes the view out the front is of any number of other places. Not long ago I lost a guest who found one of my doors. Oh - she's fine. I know just where it goes. She just likes it better in there. Everything looks exactly the same as it does in the world she accidentally left when she opened that door. The only difference is she's happy now, where she wasn't before.

Anyhooo, I'm looking forward to the time of Summer fires.

Ah, I hear thunder. Good good good. I shall go out on my kitchen porch and listen to the birds call the thunder down this morning.

Speaking of David Lynch.

Here a murderer enters The Black Lodge immediately after the deed.

Commit murder and from that moment the world is made of glass.

Yes yes.

But what I really wanted to write about this morning is that I am recently the happy owner of a Kirby vacuum cleaner/floor polisher. Can you believe somebody just gave it to me?

Now, I have written on these ethereal pages that nothing of beauty was crafted by man in the 20th Century. Well, that was a little extreme.

And, what the hell does that mean? - a little extreme? Isn't that like 'a little pregnant?' Extreme means the farthest end. To be a little of the farthest is like being only only slightly superlative. But only a little like that.

Politicians - people actually seeking elected office - get up in front of people and use phrases like "a little extreme." What are they really saying?

"I cannot even express myself intelligently in my native language, and I am a complete waste of space. Vote for me!"

Right, chief.

Here's my beautiful new Kirby kicking back with a good book.



I lie. This isn't really mine. But mine is exactly like this one in every detail. Look at that huge stainless steel head! I get excited by huge stainless steel heads. Yes, I do. Until there's a cure...

Besides, I would certainly own that lamp, but I would never ever have mini-blinds in a place I was inhabiting. I mean, really...

So, I brought my new/old Kirby home the other night - I guess Thursday - and then I had somewhere to be. Parting is such sweet sorrow. I couldn't wait to get back to my new Kirby. You know, all it needed was a new belt. You break your wrist every time you change a Kirby's belt, right?

It's got this impeller that the belt loops around, and a cam-like belt tightening arrangement. Very cool. Well, I got it working at around midnight. I'm down here cleaning and fluffing my one rug at midnight while the tenants are saying "He's at it again!"

Anyhoo, look at that first picture. I got that off a google search. That's not my machine either. It's an older, even prettier, one. It's got the floor polisher head on it in that picture. But if you examine it closely you will see a portion of the Big Book "Alcoholics Anonymous" in the background.

Here is a picture of a model car made from a Kirby.



I don't like plastic. Well, I mean by that I love plastic, but I don't like to look at it. When I lost my mind a few years ago I went shopping for a new one. And of course it was plastic. Just think of the technology plastic makes possible - how it has improved our lives. Why, this computer would not be here without plastic.

But, you don't have to look at my plastic mind. I got the inside-the-skull model. (Cost a packet, too). When you look at me you see what you're supposed to see: a flawless specimen of a man.

Imagine a wooden computer. How lovely that would be! The insides could be as they are, of course. Oh - what a thing to build. It could be hand carved. There's a cottage industry idea for you go-getters. I can hear Ronald Reagan now: "Well... I know a man who was living under a tree next to an Interstate construction detour, and he started carving artful, decorative wooden boxes for home computers..."

Aren't you happy I've given you this glimpse into my life?

I was more interested in trying out all the attachments that come with my Kirby than I was in "blog-hopping" last night. Yes, I've got it in a prominent corner of my big room with the fireplace. See, I wanted to display it as the work of industrial art that it is. A steel Kirby is not a vacuum cleaner you put in your closet. No - the TV's, computers - all that plastic garbage - that belongs in the closet, hidden away from the view of civilized folks.

Well, let's leave Sister Midnight for now. I'm looking again at the banner ads google matches to my content, and they are often worthy of comment. I've noticed that any time I mention alcoholism I get ads that promote various not-drinking programs that seem to be targeted at an anti-spiritual approach. The Seinfeld approach. Remember that TV program? The characters were entirely without conscience, without a sense that there might be sin or redemption, or any one thing beyond the fulfillment of their immediate needs. Perhaps that's why I didn't enjoy Lost Highway but I loved Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart.

A friend of mine monitors The White Lodge from time to time, without commenting. She told me it's like Michael Savage meets Timothy Leary. I've done some hard living, sure. I'm at peace with that. So, Dennis Hopper can say "fuck" a million times in a movie and get high on nitrous whenever he's about to kill somebody, and I'm OK with that. The violence and shocking depravity of his character in Blue Velvet illustrates villainy. That villainy is real. There are people like that.

I like Abel Ferrara pictures, many of them. King of New York with Christopher Walken. But especially Bad Lieutenant with that stand-up knock-down performance by Harvey Keitel. Why is it we have to see his private parts in every movie he makes? Why is it we have to see anybody's?

Yes, I'm a traditionalist but I'm not a prude. I like stories about Good v. Evil. I like stories that affirm there is such a thing as that eternal battle because there is such a thing as that eternal battle. People are complicated. People are often sick, often oppressed or possessed by demons of all varieties.

Look at the "string of pearls" - look at The Gospel According to Mark, what happens there. Events in the ministry life of Jesus are told in this rapid, matter-of-fact, almost artless manner, one right after the other. Historians suggest that Mark was in a hurry because he was in Rome and he was in hiding, being hunted. Luke would take Mark's gospel and re-write it a little more artfully. But just look at all the demons Jesus encounters in the course of that narrative. I mean, you would think...

So, where are those demons today? Was there something about Jesus that He attracted them? Well, maybe - yes. Mark tells us these demons knew of His divine nature. They were trying to "out" Him, in a sense - blow His cover. But more to the point, what did Mark mean by his descriptions of demons? Are they demanding we believe in servants of a devil with pointy tails, or are they merely personifying aspects of the evil that often possesses us?

Well, I think both interpretations are true. Look, I've seen some things, and I've sensed much that remained unseen. But what have I told you about movies that feature talking animals? Disney movies? Looney Tunes? What are talking animals? Well, talking animals are demons - plain and simple. Those stories that feature talking animals are not about talking animals; they are about people. Animals are personified, or demonized - two words that mean exactly the same thing in their root definitions - in order to illustrate in an entertaining way something about the human condition. Not the talking animal condition, but the human condition.

How do we know this? Well, animals don't talk. Duh.

The word demon means person. But we reserve use of the word demon to mean person who isn't human. Could be a half-human, perhaps. Or a creature with the appearance of humanity, a disguise. We often personify - or, assign traits of human personality and consciousness to abstract principles, to thoughts, to feelings (which are really just a kind of thought). We may do this with addictions, like a drug addiction. And we may do this with alcoholism. (Two very different things, by the way.) We call those bad ideas, those wrong ideas, those sinful ideas that sometimes inhabit our minds 'demons.'

When somebody enters treatment for an addiction don't we say something like, "It's so good to see so-and-so is trying to face down his demons?" We may mean it in a poetic way, but what other way is there? Goodness gracious - isn't everything we say and think meaningful? Why else say it? Why else think it? Some people - Charismatics, Pentecostals, Catholics - say these demons are 'beings' of a sort, hideous half-made mock imitations of the worst that we can be.

Others like to think of it in a psychological way. And who has witnessed deliverance prayer who hasn't witnessed a form of psycho-drama? Are we wrong to perform liberating psycho-drama - the same sort of thing that's done by secular psychologists - in the Presence of God? Frankly, I've seen more effective results from the prayer than I have from the looney bin, but you may say that is just my anecdotal evidence, and you would be right if you did. But, do you get the point?

It doesn't matter one bit whether you wish to think of demons in the way of the religious person or in the way of the secular person. There are demons. They can oppress us. They can possess us. Oppression is very common. Actual possession is relatively rare. Much of the time in Mark's gospel he was referring not to the latter but to the former, even though both states are called "possession."

In other words, those people in Mark are just ordinary people possessed or oppressed by the exact same demons we know today. Let the meaningless argument rage on between warring factions of literalist and symbolist interpretations - Who gives a flying monkey's ass? What does the story mean? 

See, that's what I'm looking for when I read a story, watch a movie. There has to be truth in it. I believe in knights and dragons. I believe in redemption. I know it's possible. I know it happens. My Redeemer lives. He's not a ghost, not "a great spiritual teacher," nor a feeling . I like to be challenged. Sometimes I like to be shocked. I like it when there's a real bad guy, and the good guy wins. Soldiers aren't victims, but heroes. Truth is not hidden, but right in front of your face. Sacrifice is the meaning of life; there is no other meanigful thing a person can do. These principles, when they appear in stories, will usually get me liking the story.

So, anytime I see these banner ads that are just "anti" rather than "pro," reaction rather than action; limitation rather than infinity - I think: Sho'now, the demons haven't changed a bit, have they? Still selling that snake oil. The Seinfeld Method. They promise to teach us how to embrace our demons, rather than kill them, I suppose.

How tiny is the mind that cannot appreciate anything beyond what seems to exist by  touch and taste alone?

 

Well, might as well keep going with the music we already gots. I had pulled together whatever remnants of the "Lost Highway" soundtrack I could find on Imeem for my last series of rather deep, dark, dank, and daffy posts. Look at that nonsense - 'lurid eroticism' indeed! Well, it's a so-so movie with a great soundtrack. Y'all know I'm into David Lynch. I didn't like "Lost Highway." Oh, I "got" it. So what? The characters were unlikable. If I don't like the characters I'm not going to become emotionally engaged. Ya know? Great soundtrack, though. I've been playing it in my car all week. Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) produced. David Bowie sings "Deranged." Got some Lou Reed in there. Nice score music from Lynch's musical collaborator Angelo Badalmenti. Rammstein... I'll devote a Saturday to those muggs - maybe next week. Marylin Manson... But it's the way the soundtrack album is put together by Reznor that makes it a moody stand-out. Pipe this CD into an elevator and you'll get a few more checking themselves into treatment by day's end. Say, if you want to find the song controller for this playlist scroll down a post or two - it's embedded somewhere down there. I'll make an effort to visit your blogs tonight - as many as I can get to. I'm having a heckuva time finding decent music for my other blog. Do you realize not many people upload 1940's music? Can you beat that? Well, not to worry. I'll find something for Heavenly Days. Maybe some Glenn Miller. Be seeing you.