And after having mangled, and torn, and completely stripped the two brothers, the mob dragged their naked and bloody bodies to an extemporised gibbet, where amateur executioners hung them up by the feet.
Then came the most dastardly scoundrels of all, who not having dared to strike the living flesh, cut the dead in pieces, and then went about the town selling small slices of the bodies of John and Cornelius at ten sous a piece.
-Dumas
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
I don’t want to hear your reasons
I don’t want to hear disdain for rhymes
Ah the changing of the seasons…
Ah the sterile little monkeys
Would mate the brood mare
With the donkeys
Blank stare
What hath thou wrought
But plastic things
That are too often bought
Etc.
Ad naseum
Bring me a tonic
And I’ll show you fun
Social Media| https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Hungry?
Those unfamiliar with the Journal may wonder why a Russian with a Scottish surname has such a weird kink for Germany. Well, there’s Bach..and then there’s Schnitzel…!
A good friend of mine finally reopened the Stammtisch he owns and operates with his mother. It has been around for thirty years if not more. I don’t have a picture of its first iteration but here is the second…with which I am most familiar:
It was basically a converted trainstation or motel right behind a newly built strip mall featuring giants like Whole Foods and other yuppie delights. Considering this I’d definitely call it a hidden gem. Very Gemütlichkeit!
I’ve helped out at the place before and loved it well…so it’s sad that the location and memories are now just history. But not too sad considering this:
Julia’s German Stammtisch not only sports a swank new look but now offers several excellent German beers on tap! Today I enjoyed a Warsteiner lager and a Franziskaner Hefe-Weisbier Dunkel. This was their opening day and the lunch hours so I may have well had the first if not one of the first sips out of the keg!
So if you are ever near the Midlands and need something that sticks to your ribs look up Julia’s German Stammtisch.
You may even run into a certain goateed fop having jam sessions and brews with the music loving restauranteur!
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Here’s my cringetastic reporting on a local bit of news from last year.
And….here’s how it turned out…
I plan to do a bit more of this sort of on the ground stuff in the coming year. Subjects will vary but I’m thinking will primarily be environmental in nature. Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned.
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
O dear, it seems it’s time for some conceptual play….
Apparently these days the scouts aren’t the only people obsessed with merit. There’s a whole phalanx of YouTube luminaries and pundits waxing poetic about the merits of meritocracy.
I’m rather confused by this term or by the suggestion that we’ve ever had anything approaching a purely merit based system outside of sports.
The reason that I’m writing about it is because it has a similar contour to something else that grates my hipster stuble. It’s the idea of the marketplace…that everything is some kind of weird bazaar where we exchange ideas in a way that somehow mirrors the exchange of money for goods in the real world. This concept is often touted by folks who espouse and claim to be steeped in the classics. Which is odd if anyone is familiar with the esteem that ancient Greek intellectuals held merchants and tradesman…o but the philosophers met in marketplaces and forums to have discussions…so its alluding to that…
Yea I’m aware of basic history there eagle scout. That however is not the way you’re presenting the argument O hypothetical e-scholar. You SEEM to believe that there is something akin to a quantitive scale based on the qualities of ideas. That the DEMOS employs this and thus any given idea is subject to fair trade.
This view however collapse upon the briefest examination of the world of ideas. Just like in marketing the loudest, flashiest, or most familiar ideas win. (Memes work.) This is why rhetoric is more effective than long balanced analyses. If you’re thinking about ideas in terms of sales…I think you should examine what it is to play intellectual.
The marketplace of ideas in order to be a fair trade sort of thing needs to have strict rules that are understood and adhered to by the participants. This is patently not the case. There is no Roberts rules of Order for the world of ideas outside of academia. And the academics playbook doesn’t IMO provide very much outside of hyper-specialized goop. (See – Gay Chicano Studies – I think that gay Chicanos deserve more dignity than being the plaything of Aderall addicted P.h.D. hopefuls.)
Yes, but ok but we’re talking more about it like a contest where the best man wins. Again a contest requires rules understood and adhered to by the participants thereof. I do not see this.
Well, it’s more of an answer to the culture of gimmeedats, and millennials, and participation trophies, and and and and and….
I really feel it strange that grown men sit about gloating over their moral superiority to a kid who got a cheap plastic trinket cause their teacher was a hippy. I really doubt that this affects kids quiet as much as these windbags imagine. Sure, there are a lot of unimpressive brats clogging up the freeways. Their lacklusterness has far less to do with cheap plastic trinkets and far more to do with commercializing philosophy itself. Think about it…does a culture that values revenue over art produce more middle managers or Michelangelos?
No! You’re not getting it…you see less qualified people are being given unfair advantages because of institutions.
Hmm…institutional bias…where have I heard that before…
But ok, I too am annoyed when my managers know just as much if not less about the job than I do.
I too am annoyed at Asian students being excluded from programs that they are often immensely qualified for because things have to be ‘fair.’
That argument is unfortunately completely separate from the Weltanschauung that you’re painting. The pretty tidy portrait where a darwinian laissez fair machine exists to reward merit.
O but you oversimplify and that’s too sharp a picture and you are strawmanning and and and…
And is there anything remotely resembling merit in the concept of seniority? Is there anything remotely resembling an equal exchange of ideas before minds equally capable of grasping it? Or is it all just really weird fractally kaleidoscopic anarchy?
I submit that Oprah outsells Damasio and likely Dostoevsky.
Is a man without legs capable of purchasing boots by whose straps he’ll haul himself up? Is he really competing with Shaquille O Neal?
NO YOU TWAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT HOW THE BEST MAN SHOULD WIN!
And I submit…should win at what?
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
The cherries that you bought at the super market
Were almost as sweet as the fleet way that you share a cigarette
In smoky whispers that decay regret
O and never will I never will I cry
From this moment on
There is only a glad song
Deep within my breast
I’ll stay high at last without a feast or fast
Ah, the memory so neatly tied so tidy
Ever in my brain
Balm for every pain
O Francis
Let loose your chances
let’s have wild dances
Out there in the rain
Yes I am again
I am again
For I have nothing more to gain
Tender is the moonlight dappling the morning
As it fades to sunlight
I look at stars which twinly are more bright
O my chief delight
O Francis
let loose your chances
Lets have wild dances
Lift another cup
For there is no faith but up
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Don’t rely on technology to overcome your laziness. A nicer pen and notebook will gather dust just the same as your BIC and that yellow legal pad. These are the things I discuss along with the frustration of coincidences involving hats.
Dank Classics – http://www.freemusicpublicdomain.com/royalty-free-classical-music/
Free series, stories, and more | https://www.fractaljournal.com
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
An homage to Styx’s shirtless shenanigans. Basically just a wee social commentary on demographic silliness. Case in point: every generation is shit.
+Styx’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N05WMnxnoYI
+Sargon’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrwC0gQ1GX8
+Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/06/give-six-year-olds-the-vote-says-cambridge-university-academic
+ Dank Beats : https://archive.org/details/DanielIvanFreeRoyaltyMusic
My social media: https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
The tale continues!
Sorry for the lag in uploading/creating. End of the year is a busy time and all the rest of my excuses etc..
Also sorry for the subpar voice acting… I really would have preffered getting some dudebros together but I’m far too spent ATM to herd the sort of cats I hang about with.
Anywho hope you enjoy and here’s the script just in case you’d prefer to read it.
Doctor Borowski – The following is somethin I was able to grab with my pen. I never thought I’d use this damn thing. Bought it as a vanity at some conference in Sante Fe years back. Little recording device that let’s you get around certain pesky patients rights legalese….never thought I’d use it…much less for good. Hell I’m surprised the battery still held. I feel like James Fucking Bond here…
Agent Bisby : I’m going to remind you again, just one last time, that your prescence here is due entirely to my good humor.
Doctor Borowski: (Sighs) I think you understimate the amount of leverage I yield. These are my patients.
Agent Bisby : Only one is your patient, and he is a possible criminal.
Doctor Borowski: Hardly.
Alan Rickman : O gee I’m so fucking scared…listen you fucking armed accountant …
Docto Borowski : Easy Alan easy…
Alan Rickman : Alright…but just for you doc…this guy right here….
Docor Borowski : That’s enough Alan…
Doctor Borowski : Are you alright Mr. Hurst?
Frank Hurst: “Alright…hahahaa…yea…”
Agent Bisby“Can you tell us what happened?”
Alan Rickman: Can anyone tell anyone anything?
Agent Bisby: Get real man.
Alan Rickman: Yea, real…ok…let’s talk reality…what do you know about Alexandria?
Agent Bisby: I’m not here for a history lesson.
Alan Rickman: I don’t think that you have a choice. You’re gonna have to humor me. Or at least that’s what you can tell yourself Mockingbird.
Agent Bisby: (after a moment of silence) Hey! Don’t call me that…
Alan Rickman: (Laughs derisively)
Agent Bisby: Trust me buckoo…ya don’t scare me one bit. I’ve seen way weirder shit than that…
Alan Rickman: That’s rather inconsequential…and…you still haven’t answered the question. What do you know about Alexandria…
Agent Bisby: It’s a city in Egypt…what about it…it’s history, the burning of the library….what?
Alan Rickman: The library.
Agent Bisby: Well, what about it? First it was accidentaly burned by Ceasar, then fell into pedantry, then was finally eradicated by Islam.
Alan Rickman: Quaint. Very quaint indeed, but I think you know better….
Agent Bisby: If you mean that paganism and platonism survived, that many libraries existed throughout the mediterannean, then yes…if you mean something else…
Alan Rickman: O I do.
Agent Bisby: I’ve never been one for guessing games.
Alan Rickman: What is theurgy?
Agent Bisby: Voodoo.
Alan Rickman: (laughs) What is demonstration?
Agent Bisby: What I’m doing now…demonstrating patience. A feat growing more and more difficult by the second.
Alan Rickman: I meant etymologically…what is demonstration?
Agent Bisby: I’m aware of the oracle of Delphi…what is your point…
Alan Rickman: My point is that there was a point to the specific destruction of the Alexandrian Library.
Agent Bisby: Alternative history is a great made for TV special but it ain’t got a thing to do with your crime.
Alan Rickman: (Laughs) My crime?
Agent Bisby: Yes, you may recall that you kidnapped and maimed Frank Hurst.
Alan Rickman: (Chuckles) Is that what he told you? That I kidnapped him.
Agent Bisby: No he has trauma induced amnesia.
Alan Rickman: And what did the good doctor here tell you.
Agent Bisby: I don’t for one instance believe that you plucked Mr. Hurst from thin air.
Alan Rickman: What in the doctors record indicates that he is prone to lyign, fanciful stories, or any particular afffinity to me?
Agent Bisby: Well nothing…
Alan Rickman: And you say you’ve seen strange things…
Agent Bisby: I am not the one being investigated right now…
Alan Rickman: And what is now?
There is a great whirring sound.
Agent Bisby and the doctor gaze around a field in astonishment.
Agent Bisby: This…this…this is my dad’s ranchouse…this is our…our pasture…our gate…
Alan Rickman: (Chuckles) I kept the docs furniture to make sure you remained in a comfortable psychoanalytic mood…
Agent Bisby: What…what the hell is happening..am I some kinda guniea pig here…was this the superintendents idea…I want answers damn it..
Alan Rickman: O come now…I don’t think you need an external authority to provide you with answers. You have yet to answer my question what is now? Let…me give you a hint…how is it that I was able to see Frank Hurst all these years?
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If only Junker had such shoulders…I would myself join Le Grande Armee!
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