Dreamlandings

I’m sitting in my orchid room facing south-east.  It is almost 12:00 noon on a rainy winter day and the temperature here on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains is 37.5 degrees.  We all here have been lead to believe that the temperature outside will peak today somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 degrees.  The rain is not expected to let up until late tonight.  Puddles reflecting a grey on grey sky are scattered all around the flower beads like broken mirrors on a blank slate.  The Solstice has come and gone leaving that blank slate pregnant as hell with new flowers for another new year.

I have 26 different orchids and most of them it seems are preparing to have sex right here in this room.  It’s a whore house.  Shameless displays of colorful anatomical features grown specifically to attract and confuse and amaze will soon be everywhere pumping perfume and calling to insects that will never hear, or smell, or see them.  No one has a date for this prom.  There is no one here but us voyeurs who make a fetish of this kind of thing.  You could say we like to watch.

In the last week I had the opportunity to read two interesting books.  “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson and “Empire of the Summer Moon” by S.C. Gwynne.  The first was about Steve Jobs.  In 571 pages I learned that I don’t think I would have liked him at all.  I appreciate his art, but, I’m afraid that is as far as it goes.  The second book was about the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history.  The Comanches were artists at torturing people who were their enemies while Steve Jobs was somewhat of an artist at torturing friend and foe alike.  Steve Jobs figured out a way to tame and make computers friendly and useful to people almost to the point that they couldn’t live without them.  The Comanches figured out a way to tame the wild mustangs left behind by the Spanish Conquistadors and with them rule the South West.

Both books were very interesting and worth the time spent.  Steve Jobs was afraid to die, the Comanches not so much.  When a reporter asked Steve Jobs what kind of market research he did for his products Steve replied,  “Do you think Alexander Graham Bell did market research before he invented the telephone?”  Steve Jobs cried a lot.  I mean A LOT!  The Comanches expected to be tortured to death should they fail in battle so they always fought to the death.  Not a crybaby in a carload.

So, here I sit in my room full of oversexed dandelions, as usual, trying to make some kind of sense out of it all.  Failing of course because there is no sense to be made of this dog’s breakfast mix of so called facts and falderal we call existence.  The only game in town is “Connect-A-Dot”.  We are each, in our time and place, the only player.

Long after I have forgotten the things I learned about Steve Jobs I will remember how the Comanche broke wild horses.

They would lasso a horse around the neck and tighten and tighten the noose until the horse could be forced to the ground.  They would sit upon the terrified animal and restrict it’s ability to breathe until it, after much thrashing, would lose consciousness.  They would then undo the noose and the man who was to own the horse would begin to stroke its neck and blow air up its nose until it regained consciousness.  In a matter of minutes the animal could be mounted and rode away.

Could John the Baptist have been a Comanche?

According to Mitt Romney and his Mormon Church Jesus came to America after he was executed.  Who is to say Johnny didn’t come too?

Eva Perón’s Lobotomy

I read this morning that… “Dr. James L. Poppen, a neurosurgeon at the Lahey Clinic in Boston and an international expert on the use of lobotomy for intractable pain, had been summoned to operate on Eva Perón in the summer of 1952.”  Evita died a few months later at the age of 33.

     The nature of Perón’s illness was initially shrouded in silence. Her doctors diagnosed advanced cervical cancer in August 1951, but as was common at the time, the patient was told only that she had a uterine problem.  

…”a uterine problem”

As the orchestra begins to gently play “Don’t cry for me I’m a metaphor” the audience is treated to multiple screens displaying images of every-day life.  Stove-Top Stuffing and Jimmy Dean sausages and half the population living at or below the poverty line, what ever that is.  Moe, Larry, Mitt and Newt and so many things I have to remember to ask my doctor about, and if I should be on, and if I would “benefit from”.  So little time with Christmas almost here and the Solstice upon us and all the problems in the world.

…”a uterine problem”

“Postmortem X-rays of Perón’s skull showed indentations in the areas where lobotomies were usually performed.”

     In keeping with the holiday spirit it is my hope that, when our time arrives, the same can be said for us all….. Metaphorically.

Breathe deep the gathering gloom,
Watch lights fade from every room.
Bedsitter people look back and lament,
Another day’s useless energy spent.
Impassioned lovers wrestle as one,
Lonely man cries for love and has none.
New mother picks up and suckles her son,
Senior citizens wish they were young.
Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
Removes the colors from our sight.
Red is grey and yellow white.
But we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion?

(Late Lament)