I was a monster once;
Awful and magnificent,
sleek, soulless and cool.
You broke me upon the wheel of your heart,
cracking and straining,
until we fractured together;
I, muted, frail, human.
You, singing as the wind whistled through your cracks.
For a while we were beautiful;
but then you shattered,
and I, alone, am growing once more,
into my skin;
more awesome, and more terrible
than ever before.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Rising
Dispatches from the wilds of Proseambique – Economic Vandalism
When the news came down that the stimulus package had been blocked in the senate, rioting broke out. Intriguingly; it was, initially at least, restricted to university towns, and the damage was (in a rather curious fashion) fairly evenly distributed across the population – everyone had a broken window here, a slashed tire there, but no single property owner found the totality of their possessions destroyed; there were no houses burnt down, nor cars stolen, no specific suburbs devastated by large-scale riots while others remained untouched – but almost everyone found themselves facing just a little bit of damage.
As the police started arresting people, a chilling commonality to the rioters emerged. They were all economists.
“We’ve got to stimulate spending!” screamed one as police dragged him away from a battered SUV, the crowbar still clutched in his white-knuckled hands.
“Keynes was right! Keynes was riiiiiight!”
*****
Inspired just a wee bit by “Fear the Boom and Bust” A Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Feature Creep
Multi-touch is great.
I don’t remember what life was like
before mobile Internet,
and the compass is surprisingly useful.
They keep telling me that geolocation is the next big thing,
So thanks for the GPS, I guess.
It’s nice, having a camera built in,
and playing music; yes… just yes.
But when are you going to release the model
that comes with that girl’s number pre-loaded?
And knows exactly when I should call?
With the integrated digital compass
that gives direction to my life?
With the noise-cancelling microphone
that corrects my pronunciation?
With the autosuggesting dictionary
that loads my every message with pith and wit?
With the enhanced call quality
that makes my conversations more interesting?
With the Facebook-syncing address-book,
that knows who I want to talk to?
With the superior nationwide coverage
that drops the calls I don’t want to answer?
That only ever receives good news?
Dispatches from the wilds of Proseambique – Garry Kasparov’s TED Talk
“First off, I want to thank you all for having me here today. I must say; I’m honoured. Now, before I start, I need to refer to a few of the other talks that have been given here, so that you can better appreciate where I’m coming from.
In 2008, Paul Stamets stood up here and told you 6 ways mushrooms can save the world. When he did, he revealed the amazing structure of mycelium that permeates the soil of our planet. These vast – yet tiny – interconnected webs, which look, to me, strikingly like the neurological structures of the brain, convey nutrients across entire forests. But as well as nutrients, he speculated that they might carry information, and described them as “Earth’s natural Internet”. He also introduced us to the largest living organism on the planet – in eastern Oregon – a twenty-two hundred acre, two-thousand year-old mycelial mat that is just one cell wall thick.
In 2009, Bonnie Bassler revealed that her team had discovered that bacteria, one of the smallest, simplest forms of life on the planet, can talk. Using specific molecules to communicate, they can organise group behaviour. Bonnie’s team also figured out how to talk to these bacteria; how to tell the malign bacteria not to go virulent, and how to tell the benign bacteria to work better.
Subsequent studies of the Oregon mycelial mat have found, amongst the usual series of nutrient transfers, a number of chemical compounds being transferred across vast distances that could not be explained – they had, so far as we could tell, no nutritional or anti-bacterial purpose. Eventually, a signals analysis team took a crack at it and concluded that, indeed, it was in fact a form of information transmission. These chemical bursts left traces; such that we are able to see the entire record of what can only be called a conversation, going back two thousand years. Once they figured out that it was a form of communication, it was only a matter of time before they figured out what it was communicating.
Some six hundred miles away, in Utah, is a clonal colony of Quaking Aspen – essentially an entire forest made up of genetically identical copies of one tree, all connected by a unified root structure, covering one hundred and seven acres, and estimated to be some eighty thousand years old, which is known as Pando, The Trembling Giant. Researchers studying it found the exact same chemical sequences in its root structure.
Somehow, over a distance of six hundred miles, these two organisms have been communicating for the last two thousand years.
The question then became, “what are they saying?”
The scientists first tried to date individual messages, to see if they could connect them at all to known environmental variables. This, however, proved a failure – the patterns in the messages did not seem to correspond to any known environmental history. They did, however, determine that the mycelial mat and Pando both secreted different kinds of chemicals, and consequently were able to show that the conversation was distinctly a back-and-forth affair; each organism sending out one message, and then the other replying. Once they realised this, it was only a matter of time before they figured it out.
They are playing a game.
That was when they called me in. They showed me the data, and, with help from the signals analysis team, I was able to figure out the rules of this game. It turned out, however, to be nothing like chess. The key metaphor of the game, somewhat understandably, is one of branching. The idea is that one sends out tendrils, seeking to capture territory, whilst simultaneously blocking off one’s opponent. It is, structurally, more similar to Go.
This game, as I have said, has been progressing for the last two thousand years. It takes place, naturally, at the speed of fungus, which is to say: not especially quickly by human standards. Pando, presumably as a consequence of his seventy-eight thousand years of experience over the mycelium, is winning.
He shan’t get to declare victory, however, for another twelve thousand years.”
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Atlantis
“Happiness is a singular incentive to mediocrity” – Michel Montaigne
In your arms, I would forsake reason,
on your lips, I would forget verse,
for your eyes, I would abandon dreams,
in you, I would dissolve.
Thank you, sweet Calypso,
for my sails.
Dispatches from the wilds of Proseambique – Happy New Year
“Is that the best you can do?!” we seem to cry, scornfully, as we hurtle our home-made thunderbolts heavenwards. “Drop your colourless lightning!” we laugh, “Behold our blooming roses of fire!”
A violent symphony explodes above our heads, as though we sought to obliterate the etherial sky-palaces of the gods; as we did the clouds before them.
Half bemused by our impudence, Zeus, Thor and Set look down upon us, smirking maliciously as they weave the threads of our year to come; knotting it with miseries and divine retribution.
In the streets, we sing and dance our hubris into the dawn.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Christmas Special
Christmas shopping
is the closest I get
to the hunt
and damn, I’m good at it.
I could kill a lion with my Visa debit card.
I think I love it even more
than conflating metaphors;
for I am a Ninja of gift-buying.
I could slay your entire family
with just a few well-placed Penguin Classic Editions;
death by a thousand paper-cuts,
killing them with kindness.
And when you find that perfect gift,
that shiver running down your spine?
that’s when you realise I’m standing right behind you
with my blade at your throat.
Dispatches from the wilds of Proseambique – Pretence
It’s a good thing that zombies aren’t smart; it means you can survive, as long as you are. Your natural instinct is to run away, to recoil from them, to scream like hell and climb the tallest tree you can find. These are bad ideas. If a zombie sees something running, it will chase it; if it sees something recoiling, it will bite it; if it sees something climbing, it will grab it – but if it sees something shuffling; something shambling; something groaning slightly; something that clearly hasn’t washed its clothes in over a week and smells like a dumpster, well, it’ll just shuffle and shamble right on by. So you learn to act like one. You develop a hunch and a penchant for drooling. You’re careful to find secure hiding-places to sleep, because, after all, zombies don’t. On a few terrifying occasions, a zombie bursts in on you; but each time they turned out to be another pretender, and, after a few moments of nervous laughter, you excitedly share your (frankly mundane and somewhat identical) stories of life after undeath and then settle down to sleep; going your separate ways in the morning. Zombies don’t have friends.
On one occasion, you actually meet a lady pretender. Despite the fact that she hasn’t bathed in over a month and has decaying rats in her pockets to better smell like the undead, you’re instantly attracted to her. You briefly imagine having a child and rebuilding the human race, but you realise it’s impossible before you can even mention it. Zombies don’t get pregnant. And how do you train a baby to act like a zombie? Do they even have baby zombies? You can’t recall ever seeing one. So you don’t bother even floating the idea; although you do get down to what most men imagine happens when a man and woman meet in the post-apocalypse. The next morning, before you part ways, you’re tempted to ask “same place tonight?”, but you don’t. Zombies don’t have routines.
Shopping, fortunately, is easy. The behaviour of most people in a supermarket bears a striking resemblance to the mindless, aimless shambling of a zombie, so every so often you stagger into one and wander the aisles, looking for non-perishables. Over time, the pickings get slimmer and slimmer. You begin to wonder just how many other pretenders there are out there, scouring these aisles. You start to wonder how you could ever know; what if they’re all pretenders? What if there are no zombies? But no. That doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean, why would people have started pretending, if they weren’t hiding from zombies? You struggle to remember how this all started; a confused jumble of hazy memories and Hollywood plot-lines. No, there’s definitely zombies out there. There must be, right? A rumble from your stomach brings your mind back to the task at hand, and soon you start wondering what you’ll do once the food runs out. Hunt rats? It’s a pity you can’t eat zombies, for fear of infection. Although, pretenders, on the other hand… You scold yourself. Stop thinking like that. What are you doing? Zombies don’t think.
You shuffle on.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Vertigo
I know you’re trying to help,
I get it, really,
but seriously, stop.
I know that you think you know what you’re doing,
I understand you have several million hard-won years of experience,
I realise that untold millions died for you to get it,
entire species died out,
whole branches of our family tree lopped off,
but damn it, I’m not going to fall over.
This thing has solid-state gyroscopes
with medical-grade redundancies in place.
So please, if it’s not too much trouble,
can you just shut the hell up,
and let me Aeroplane on my Segway?
It’ll be fine, I promise.
I’ll buy you some cookies afterwards.
Dispatches from the wilds of Proseambique – Roulette
We never make eye contact. We’ve never discussed it – or, indeed, anything at all. But we all do it. A quiet conspiracy of silent strangers, organised with such secrecy that even we are scarcely aware of it. Every morning we approach our stop and the game begins. Russian office-worker roulette. Or maybe it’s chicken.
No-one pushes the button. We get closer and closer. Maybe we’re hoping for permission. Peer pressure. I’ll skip work if you do. Or maybe we’re just wondering – if nobody hit the button, would he stop anyway? Inevitably, someone remembers an unmissable meeting, or a presentation, or a cute temp’s last shift, and with the tolling of a small, far too cheerful bell, our fates are sealed for another day. With an unexpressed communal groan we disembark. The bus lurches on, the driver sad. Once more his dream of a surprise rebellious excursion to the beach (or candy mountain) going unfulfilled.
