Lullabies for Seamus

tinyurl.com/lullabies-for-seamus

1. Model          (tune: G&S's)

You are the very model of a quite complacent pussycat:
Your fur's a tad elongated, your belly is a little fat,
          Your purr is very audible,
          You roll into a body-ball,
You are the very model of a quite complacent pussycat!

You are the mighty hunter in the jungle of the living room;
Your speed can vary sharply from an amble to a lightning zoom;
          Your audacity’s incredible:
          You think MY food is edible,
And stick your mouth between my face and what I have upon my spoon!

You let me pet you gently, then you grab me and you want to fight;
You settle down along my side, and cuddle there all through the night;
          You gaze out at the critters, then
          You get a case of jitters, an’
You run across our bellies, waking both of us with quite a fright!

[repeat first verse]

2. Pretty Kitty          (tune: Coming Round the Mountain)

You're a pretty little kitty, yes you are;
You're a pretty little kitty, yes you are;
          You are such a pretty kitty
          I must sing a little ditty
About what a pretty kitty cat you are:

Your fur is proud and tumble-dried and long;
Your purr is loud and rumble-like and strong;
          It is really not a hassle
          That you have to have a wrassle
Every time I want to sleep or sing a song!

You strop against my legs each time you pass;
You try to fight the “Rocky“s through the glass;
          Your teeth and claws are brambles;
          But when lights turn off, WHO scrambles
Like the demon-dogs of hell were on his ***?

You're a brave and fearless fellow, yes you are;
You're a brave and fearless fellow, yes you are;
          You're a brave and fearless fellow —
          Who could ever call you “yellow”?! —
You're a brave and fearless fellow, yes you are!

Rest in peace, Seamus, facing east. After night comes the dawn....

Perfection vs Growth

tinyurl.com/perfection-vs-growth

“Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” — Matthew 5:48.

With full respect to our elder brother, let me venture another point of view.

This is the life we get to make mistakes in, to bump noses, to misspeak or misinterpret and have to explain, to fall down and pick ourselves back up again, to make utter fools of ourselves now and then, to find we’ve hurt each others’ feelings and apologize and sob our hearts out and forgive and be forgiven. We have a lifetime of perhaps a century or less, even much much less, to practice everything, and get it all wrong at first if we must, and then work around to getting it all right. This is the temporary life, the sandbox. Let’s learn and grow from the experience while we have the precious opportunity!

The next life is the permanent one, where whatever is, lasts forever, and must be exactly, perfectly right — and by then we’ll be perfect by definition, “past perfect” in its most grammatical sense; this life will be over and done with, gone and completed, perfect as in dead. Why rush ahead to the time of no second chances? Why disdain, and discard unused, our one blessèd chance to be imperfect now?

_______________

The late Robert Lynn Asprin, who as “Yang the Nauseating” founded the SCA’s Dark Horde, made part of its philosophy the goal of perfection, an ideal he derived from his martial arts background. He was another “elder brother” I differed with to this extent.

The utopianly pacific martial art Aikido’s founder Morihei Ueshiba (whose side I share here) took a more grounded stance: “Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.” — The Art of Peace.  “Never think of yourself as an all-knowing, perfected master,” he advised; on which basis he declined to wear the prestigious mastery belt of his own school.

Daniel Steinbock’s “Perfect Is Dead” discusses “the elusive aesthetic principle of wabi sabi [in Japanese art]... an attitude towards one’s craft that embraces imperfection. ... For wabi sabi practitioners, perfection is just a head trip.... a perfect form is dead. It has no room to grow, move, stretch, or transform, because any change spells a deviation from perfection. Perfection is rigid, stultifying to innovation, end-all-be-all, boring. Imperfect is alive, in flux, starts arguments, and raises questions....”

Consider the saying, “the perfect is the enemy of the good [enough]”. Among other meanings: doing something well may be rendered impossible by striving to do it perfectly. (Striving to do it better, as time and other priorities allow, is another matter. Are deadlines an issue? The perfectionist may not finish.)

Gore’s Saga

tinyurl.com/gore-s-saga

In a thread over on Shakespeare’s Sister in 2006, discussing
just how hard the Democrats should fight the Republicans, Kirby wrote:

“In 2000, I wanted to see a naked and bloody Al Gore
standing on the steps of the White House with Bush’s head on a pike.
So no, nothing Dems do to fight back now would bother me.”

That was such a vivid image that it called up heroic verses in my head.

                    GORE‘S SAGA

Foul was the faring to ford the Potomac;
Wretches had ruined the river‘s pure flow.
Deep was the darkness as desperate heroes
Sought through the city to slay their fell foe.

Drastic the deeds that had drawn them all thither,
Tragic the tale of that terrible time:
Fate had enfeebled the freedom of many,
Parting the people from power by crime.

Once had the wonderful way of the nation
Settled succession by seeking fair test;
Now had the numbers been not truly noted,
Liars had laughed as they libelled the best.

Gore had the greater of groups voting for him,
Only if honesty honored the counts.
Fewer would follow a felon hight Dubya —
His were the henchmen that hid the amounts.

Dark was the day that this Dubya took power,
Woeful the world under wicked men‘s rule:
Terror attacking could topple a tower,
Dubya would do naught but dabble at school.

Past all his prating of pet goats to children,
Courage he could not have claimed and been true.
Fearfully fled he from first sign of danger,
Crept into caverns well covered from view.

Scorned as a shivering, snivelling coward,
Laid he the lie that made loyal men gag:
He was a hero as hearty as any,
Wrapped in a robe of the royal war-flag.

Posing and prancing, this parody-hero
Sped to the sites that his sloth had betrayed,
Spoke of his strength and the speed of his vengeance,
Waved men to war... but then went home and played.

Further this failure would fetter his subjects:
Patriots, pled he, would pledge him their creed.
Bills he embellished to buttress his power;
Sign here, he said, do not seek first to read.

Soon, at his summons, like serfs were his people,
Terror and torture the tools of his trade;
Merely his marking out men made them vanish,
Pass into prisons he privily made.

Far from the field of this fetid corruption,
Loving the land and yet loathing its lord,
Hearing the horrors that had thus befallen,
Gore listens grimly, while grinding his sword.

Long, but no longer, I‘ve left off my vengeance!
Strong, but no stronger, that snaveling’s role!
Weak, but no weaker henceforth, will my party
Pry back the power that prattler stole!

Blows he a blast on his bellicose war-horn,
Trump-call whose tremors would trammel a foe;
Friends, though, it finds, and they fleetly come forward,
Swords, shields, and spears by their sides as they go.

Swift was their sight of the city benighted,
Quiet and quick was their crossing the ford.
Wrathful and ruthless, they wreaked their hard justice,
Few folk could flee from the fierce spear and sword.

Liars there lay with their lips for once truthful,
Cowards and caitiffs lay calmly at last;
Traitorous torturers‘ tools turned against them,
Paying back pain they had plied in the past.

Screams arose, scaring the scabrous still-living,
Panicing pundits and pollsters who’d slept;
Hacks and louts huddled in hideous terror,
Goplin-folk gripped little green balls and wept.

Where’s Rum and Wolf-o‘-wits, where is Gonzales,
Architects ardent of arduous wars?
Seek ye the secrets they sought to hide ever,
Cells they concealed, tighter sealed now than jars.

What of the worst of them, wily Dick Cheney,
Karl the Accursèd, and coarse liar Rush?
Brains they had boasted, and bellies fat-laden;
Stop by the swine-pens and sniff at the mush.

What of the wicked and wastrel man Dubya?
Fear not, my folk, here‘s the finish you‘ll love.
Gore went and got him, and gives us a trophy:
See, there he stands, with his spear held above.

Bare now and bloodied, but bowing to no man,
Proud of his people and pure in his cause,
Bears he the burden above on his spearpoint,
Proof that no prince safely poisons our laws.

Doom that he dreaded found Dubya the Dumbwad:
Hoisted his head was on high-waving spear;
Gutters were glutted with guts of his goplins.
Glory to Gore, all our griefs disappear!

                    © 2006 C.M. Joserlin, “Raven”

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song.]

Gaming the System

tinyurl.com/gaming0system

I have been thinking about examples of “gaming the system” — twisting it from general benefit to personal profit at general cost — I’ve seen either on large, very public scales, or in smaller, less publicized contexts (in the late 1970s and the 1980s I saw it being used to change social groups away from mutual-benefit to self-aggrandizement for some at the cost of abusing others, enough times to make the pattern clear — like hornets persuading honeybees they belonged in the hive, long enough to consume it); and about a sort of “system analysis” to anticipate what sorts of systems are more or less likely to BE so gamed… as Frédéric Bastiat so pithily commented in his 1850 pamphlet “The Law”:

See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system. … In fact, this has already occurred.

One of the longer-term worst cases I’ve seen is vulture capitalism, whose core concept was apparently taught senior-to-junior by students of Harvard Business School starting last century: join companies, get an influential position [that HBS MBA helps!], loot it, and take a golden parachute away. Some formed entire companies to take control of other businesses and loot them more efficiently; Bain Capital (led by Mitt Romney, who’d taken the joint JD/MBA program at Harvard Law and Business Schools) is one exemplar. (I pause to think of the SF film John Carter, with the roving city of Zodanga looting other cities, gradually killing off Barsoom.) The barbarians are inside the gates, but no shots are being fired, because no-one thinks of it as a war: it’s called “business as usual”. Honeybees now seem more likely to recognize and repel hornets which invade their hives; so many of the bees that could be fooled have already died, their young become hornet-food.

In this light, the Trump-led but lawyer-advised effort to change the 2020 election result by process tricks, like fake electors and having the VP send state results back to red legislatures (which the J6 insurrection was intended to push by intimidation), should be seen as another example of “gaming the system”, using some of its provisions *against* its own overall purpose of letting the people choose their leaders. The 2016 election’s manipulation by Russia, to change the Electoral-College outcome, was yet another such example. We can think back further, to 2000’s Florida debacle and the Bush v. Gore decision; the 1980 October Surprise; Nixon’s 1968 deal with South Vietnam to withdraw from the Paris Peace Accords and discredit LBJ, extending the war at the cost of millions of lives. Zodanga would approve.

I’ve long since lost any tolerance I might have had for system-gaming. We can write computer software to resist backdoor attacks, worms, and viruses — we should write our social, business, & governmental rules and laws with similar care against malevolent manipulations.

The Dream

tinyurl.com/the-dream-by-raven

Friend, when you and I were younger, and the world was strange and vast,
How our eager hearts would hunger for the legends of the past:
Dreams of swords and spears uplifted, gleaming armour in the sun,
Streams of banners bravely flying where the battle had begun.
Oh, to see the truth triumphant, setting Right ahead of Might,
Hear the gentle judgments afterward, at Court by candlelight,
Or the revelry and laughter while the merry minstrels sing
Of Heorot Hall with Grendel gone, or Camelot in Spring.

     We have joined in joy and sadness with each hero in his plight,
     Shared the fine inspired madness of La Mancha’s woeful knight;
     Parents little know the path they chart for children when they bring
     All the stories, songs, and sagas about Camelot in Spring.

How those visions filled our childhood, strengthened us as nothing could,
Put our world in moral order, set our standard of the good;
For the lessons that we heeded, shining from the printed page,
Were the virtues that were needed to bring on the Golden Age.
But perhaps our elders mocked our dreams of dragons on their hoards,
So, for lack of worthy foes, we packed away our magic swords;
Then our schools and jobs distracted us with all the work they bring,
And no more we thought of Heorot, or Camelot in Spring.

     Bid farewell to bold adventures and our comrades of the mind,
     To the Wizards wise and subtle, and the Ladies fair and kind,
     To the Knights of the Round Table, and the Fellows of the Ring;
     Farewell Narnia and Middle-Earth and Camelot in Spring.

But when danger came to challenge us, and fear cried, “hide or flee”,
What compelled us to embrace the threat, and not the coward’s plea?
Was it that we found the courage to confront it on our own,
Or had help from him of Heorot who fought the troll alone?
And the day we faced injustice, hypocrites who held truth caged,
Then we showed our true upbringing when our indignation raged,
Saying, “THIS is not the right way, THIS would not have pleased the King
Who set justice at the Table Round, at Camelot in Spring!”

     And we’ve mourned for other dreamers who had followed the same star,
     And who died before they ever knew if truth would win the war;
     But their names still live within us, and in legend they will ring
     Along with those of Heorot and Camelot in Spring.

What though now our world grows older, and our castles fade away?
Still our dreams can make us bolder, bear our standards through the fray;
Still the quest for honour bids us battle lies and unjust laws;
Still the memory of heroes gives us comrades in our cause —
Beowulf and mighty Arthur, they knew what the battle cost;
And their songs may lend us courage when we feel alone and lost.
Even in the darkest Winter, we can raise our voice to sing
Of the vision of the glory that was Camelot in Spring.

     What if we should be forgotten, all our efforts go in vain,
     Hopes and plans die misbegotten, with but insults for our pain?
     What if no-one hears our story? Still, they’ll know us when they sing
     Of all those who dreamed the glory that was Camelot in Spring.

October 6, 1991 © C.M. Joserlin, “Raven”

In memory of Sergei Ivanovich Zaroodny, 1821-1887 and 1910-1981,
both of whom fought to bring a just world into being.
Their name has outlived tyranny.

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song.]

Initiate

tinyurl.com/initiate-by-raven

I have seen the sun at midnight, slain the bull at his command,
Used the power of the crystal, felt the force direct my hand,
Thricefold served the silver lady, sailed upon the darkest sea,
Counted corpses in the forest, chanted runes upon the tree;

I have spoken words of power, summoned Hiram from the grave,
Sung Eurydice to ransom, called ʼPhrodite from the wave,
Iʼve recited rhymes by order, chimes that echoed in the brain,
That excited love and joy — or hate and sorrow, fear and pain;

I have built the greater temple and survived the tests inside,
I have stepped on earth and water and been pierced in feet and side,
I have danced around the fire, walked the circle semi-clad,
I have chased the beasts and shared the feasts of bread and wine we had;

I have traveled to the hidden centers, studied in their lore,
Listened to the quiet murmurs and looked deep into the core,
Bound strong servants to their duties, striven long within the craft,
Drawn the dirk and done the work, while being warded fore and aft;

ʼTill the flower opened to me and I learned the secret ways,
Found the stone and on me shone the black and white and ruddy rays,
Saw with many-coloured vision and through many changes passed,
Let myself become myself, and reached my mastery at last.


           © 1984 C.M. Joserlin, “Raven”

For clarity: this echoes the "I have beens" of Welsh bards in a 'pied' conflation of the various initiatory traditions and legends, from Egypt and Greece to Wales and Scandinavia, cf. The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer and The White Goddess by Robert Graves. For instance, the first half-stanza was a pass-phrase of the Eleusinian Mysteries. If you think of a certain Biblical character as having "stepped on earth and water and been pierced", look up the story of Llew Llaw Gyffes. Both Jesus and Odin were hung "upon a tree", both Mithraists and Egyptians ritually slew bulls, both alchemists and Freemasons speak of “the Work”, both the Battle of the Trees and the Grove of Nemi left "corpses in the forest", etc. The last line may refer to the Bhagavad Gita (6:5) — "Lift up the self by the Self, And don't let the self droop down; For the Self is the self's only friend, And the self is the Self's only foe." Or perhaps it may refer to the Holy Guardian Angel, or some other form of Avatar; who can say, in such an eclectic verse?

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song.]

𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕬𝖗𝖙 𝖔𝖋 𝕸𝖆𝖌𝖎𝖈 (𝔬𝔯 𝔳𝔦𝔠𝔢 𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔰𝔞)

tinyurl.com/art-of-magic
ℑ 𝔤𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔡 𝔪𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔩 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔭𝔬𝔴𝔡𝔢𝔯,
𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔞𝔭𝔢 𝔩𝔞𝔪𝔭𝔟𝔩𝔞𝔠𝔨 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔰𝔦𝔣𝔱 𝔡𝔯𝔶 𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔥𝔰,
𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔫 𝔭𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔣𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔞𝔩𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔪𝔦𝔰𝔱’𝔰 𝔯𝔢𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔱,
𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔬𝔦𝔩 𝔭𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔡 𝔣𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔢𝔢𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝔣𝔩𝔞𝔵.

ℑ𝔫 𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔡 ℑ 𝔥𝔬𝔩𝔡 𝔞 𝔴𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔠𝔞𝔯𝔳𝔢𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔬𝔬𝔡
𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔦𝔭𝔭𝔢𝔡 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔞 𝔱𝔲𝔣𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔥𝔞𝔦𝔯;
𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯 ℑ 𝔩𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔩 𝔞 𝔰𝔪𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔣𝔩𝔞𝔱 𝔞𝔩𝔱𝔞𝔯
𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔬𝔣𝔣𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔶 𝔠𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔲𝔯𝔰.

ℑ 𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔟𝔢𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔢 𝔞𝔫 𝔢𝔵𝔭𝔞𝔫𝔰𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔠𝔩𝔬𝔱𝔥,
𝔭𝔲𝔱 𝔟𝔯𝔲𝔰𝔥 𝔱𝔬 𝔠𝔞𝔫𝔳𝔞𝔰,
𝔞𝔫𝔡
           𝖕𝖆𝖎𝖓𝖙           
𝔟𝔢𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔰 𝔩𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱,
𝔟𝔢𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔰 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔬𝔴,
𝔟𝔢𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔰 𝔣𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔰𝔭𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔱,
𝔟𝔢𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔰 𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔞𝔦𝔯 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔴𝔞𝔱𝔢𝔯,
𝔟𝔢𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔰 𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔶𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔪𝔶 𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔡 𝔠𝔞𝔫 𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔦𝔳𝔢.

ℑ𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔦𝔰 𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔪𝔞𝔤𝔦𝔠,
𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔫, 𝔱𝔢𝔩𝔩 𝔪𝔢,
𝔴𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔦𝔰?


© 1999 C.M. Joserlin, “Raven”

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song.]