“Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he

deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to

slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed

their ancient freedom.”

– Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

Chapter 3

randomly generated from that work in Gibbon-o-Matic engine hosted by His.Com

I have been neglectful of this online journal thing.

It appears to be tendential for anyone who has worked with it,

except if they are 24/7/365 dedicated online.. something I sure

don`t aspire or want to do…

A word about 2003 – I entered into the new year with work to do and

more or less an open mind.. I also entered the new year with a distinct

sensation that the world would go “insane” pretty soon, because of the

political insurrectionists up there in Washington, London &c

Its 30.01.2003 …still the kettle is boiling.. did I hear a whistle…

I`ve been meaning to keep still and know that God is God, possibly even great (I wont enter the koranic inference here, lest some bozo thinks its some kind of coded message) … In the face of such adversity, and the nature of it, a lot of people would be adviced well and good to pursue the iron discipline of such attitude, which is never passive.. but no, we can hardly expect that, can we?

Just found out that the reason a moth will circle around a lightbulb or a naked flame is that it utilizes the light of the moon when it navigates; thinking it is turning left it actually turns right in a steep curve – edging closer and closer to its point of reference.

Thus dies the romantic notion of Ikarus-proportions, that the moth seeks light, and that it`s attraction to light causes its demise.

In Clive Barker`s epic novel Sacrament one of the characters

feeds live moths to a pyre he has made, telling the hero, then a young impressionable brat – “living or dying we all feed the fire…” – the moth and the fatalistic motto is a constellation which functions well when we do not think of the scientific facts, but fades in glory. The Moth crashes into lightbulbs, windowpanes and some rare times into flames – because its natural envoirment has changed, and it is unable or unwilling to compensate for this.

There is a lesson to be learned there too.

I´ve only just returned from my first day at work.. with good impressions from my workplace and colleagues.. and a distinct taste of formaldehyde on my tongue.. there had to be setbacks, after all. Probably you´ll find me glorifying one or another breath freshener, chewing gum or other remedies against such.. but It will pass, I was reassured by one of my colleagues that you get used to it, and I guess when I do, It wont bother me anymore..
The formaldehyde is used to preserved the small bugs on pins, whose data, such as place of finding, name of the registering authority, the discoverer of the specimens in question – and so forth…I record and register in the database…Okay, this is as much I have to write at the present moment.

Just got finished with Terry Pratchett´s newest Discworld novel Nightwatch
….It´s about Sam Vimes, probably one of the most developed characters in the Discworld saga, this time – with a nod in the direction of Thief of Time – Vimes accidentally finds himself transported back in time; to the day where he became the “copper” we know him as in the Watch Books: Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo and The Fifth Elephant…Commander Vimes is also expectant, Lady Sybil is due to give birth to his son, and one of the worst kind of criminal; a bottle-covey (small rodent like, possessed of an uncanny but highly specialized intelligence and no social conscience) murdering one of his charges causes Vimes to take the chase, ending up on the top of the High Energy Magical Building, in the middle of a thunderstorm… and then the midden really hits the fan.
I am afraid that as a stand-alone novel, Nightwatch lacks some appeal, I do not think I would have enjoyed the book as much, had I not read not one, not two, but all the earlier novels with the Nightwatch time.. while quite a few of the Discworld novels is as good as that, I am especially thinking of Soul Music, Hogfather, Pyramids, Small Gods and… with some reservations Thief of Time…. Since I enjoyed it so much, it was a reading of a week, but I expect I will return to read it many times in the future, like I have with the other Discworld novels…
2.
I am now rereading The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker.
I can´t say I have gotten many new impressions from the book yet…
The Dead Letter Office wherein news of the “other places” leaks into the voyeuristic mind of Ralph Jaffe, the worst possible conduit for such signals.. puts me in mind of the more dark,confused and oblique subsections of the Internet; but do these sites and anonymous posters have access to the mysterious realm, and do they possess insights about the conspiracies silenced or just forgotten?
I know that I wont write a piece with the Internet as subject or object, my old philosophy teacher, Jostein Gaarder, in one of his early short stories, named the future “multinational database” (the Babel library refered to by Jorge Louis Borges haunts this concept) the Pleroma..
As a contemporary Gnostic I cannot vouch for the Internet being a “Fullness”, as the word describes in Greek, nor a Divine Origin and World apart.. as it is conceived to be by the ancient Gnostics….Media, and its victims, are in love with the particular mediums for which such data,information …
Another note on the “Net” is that you seldom, if ever, see a realistic rendition of the use and appearance of the Internet, be it Unix shells, Terminal screens or the common Web Browser or Email Client – in the movies and in the Television series… there´s always some fancyschmancy stuff which is all looks and no functionality..
In the Wim Wender movie “Until the End of the World”, the PI hired by one of the main characters has bought a laptop with advanced Russian underground Internet Tracking technology, and its GUI consists of a poorly drawn cartoon bear in a red beret with a sickle motif, who declares with russian accent english that he is getting “Closer!Closer!”, or Winnie the Pooh imitations “Dum-de-dum” with the same accent…. The Dream Recorder equiptment which stars at the end of the movie has a poetic feel to it, it consists of components which were available to the inventors while pursuing a nomadic lifestyle – a CargoCult aesthetic which mixes the mundane trinkets of late Silicon age effulgence with results out of the realm of dreamers and prophetics.. LoTech seems strangely appropriate for the story.. the ridiculous bear, which were “online”..supposedly HiTech.. No, I do not think so..Anyways, I´ll return to the Dream theme.. The Sea of Quiddity is the realm from which dreams and nightmares originate, the first aboriginal forefather of humanity, learned to reach towards and out from the limitations of the past and the present, through envisioning a tommorrow distinct from today…dreams, however lethargic, has always been man´s tutor, and so it is in the stories about “The Art” by Clive Barker (Great and Secret Show and Everville); Quiddity is the place the dreaming souls go after the womb has refused them further sanctuary from the world, the first night sleeping with the love of one´s life (that idea is quite sentimental, I might add..and not something I´d expect from Barker) and finally,at the time of one´s death.. Birth and Death, and between them, Love…

Finally I have been able to secure a job, so I´ll be able to do more with my life than hang around at home, looking progressively more miserable… I got the signal “go” for working at the The National Database Project of Norwegian University Museums, registering the contents of our nations museums of specimens of flora and fauna (vegetation and animal life) on Wednesday and will be starting already on Monday. Who knows,perhaps I´ll have something more to report to this blog than what im reading these days.. 🙂

Neil Gaiman:

American Gods..

Shadow is stirred from a sleepy and all but resilient stay in jail. On the same day his captivity ends, he is informed his wife has died in an car accident in the arms of his best friend and employer. On the plane homebound he meets a strange one-eyed gentleman that present himself as Wednesday, who offers to employ him as a bodyguard. Reluctantly Shadow accepts and discovers his employer is more than what meets the eye… but so is America.

There is a storm coming, and its name is War.

Gaiman has tapped into the “collective unconscious” of America and particularly the strange fact that the majority of blood that is running through her veins originates, through invisible arteries, from all over the world.. where man is, there you will find his gods, and as man finds himself to be an alien, a stranger in paradise, and also discovers the great struggle it is to survive on new soil, so will his gods…

I recommend the book most warmly and must say it was a fantastic experience to read it.

As I am a Gnostic, I also feel impelled to cite from one of the books from that particular religion:

God made human beings,and in turn,human beings made god. Just so,in the world human beings make gods and bow down to their products, it would be more fitting for the gods to worship human beings– The Gospel according to Philip, tr. Bentley Layton:The Gnostic Scriptures.

I have spent the last couple weeks reading Clive Barker´s newest novel for children,
Abarat.
It is the first installment of a sequel of books which deals with a young girl´s journey on the archipelago Abarat, whose apparent proximity appears to be in another dimension superimposed upon the barren wilderness outside of Chickentown,Minnesota…
The story is evocative not only of Clive Barker´s earlier writings, there is a dark sea of dreams, the Sea Izabella, which reminds readers of Everville of the sea of Quiddity – but also somewhat of Roald Dahl´s tales for children, where an atmosphere of everyday and “dull” events and problematics quickly takes a steep turn into the fantastic and often terrible; the secret and hidden dreamland beyond appearances and conventions.

On the outskirts of Chickentown,Minnesota – population 36,793 there is a tall tower made of timber whose function would puzzle the most imaginative of its townfolk, it is a lighthouse, raised for some bizzare function over 1000 miles from the shoreline. Escaping the persecution of her peers and her teacher who do not appreciate her attempts of making her dull and unimaginative town more exciting, she is the first in over a hundred years to discover the haunted tower, but also a strange creature who apparently is waiting for her.
During the ensuing tumults she is presented with a key for which it is fated she should become the custodian of. Unknowing she is maneuvred into a jeopardy she would never have dreamed of. I know little about the deal Barker did with Disney, but am quite sure he has not “prostituted” his gifts and talents to the “Industry”, at least this is my impression from reading Abarat.

The artwork is quite characteristic of Barker and much to be preferred for anything the artists at Disney could have produced for the mass market, but its appeal lays as well in its weirdness and grimness, a grimness which is quite appropriate for the kind of tale we are told in Abarat.

I really appreciated his last effort in the genre,The Thief of Always where I strongly believe Barker has proven that he masters more than one genre and are well equipped as an author to enchant more than one kind of audience.
In fact, I am sure adult readers such as myself can find it as enchanting as it most probably will be for a younger audience – and that it has potentional of earning the same enthusiasm from its readers as some of Roald Dahl´s classics.

Having read the book almost from cover to cover, I am again perusing the first great fantasy epics of Barker, Weaveworld, with new appetite.