Well, I just spent my spare time watching the price of oil drop.  When last I checked one of them there portable gizmos it had fallen by $2.08 a barrel, and a bunch of wonks were on arguing that the price could fall to $100 by the end of the year [of course, there could be a catastrophic hurricane or something like that between now and then - one can always hope].  Seems demand in the US has fallen by something like 3%, which still matters despite China's huge appetite for oil.  I still think energy prices will continue to rise, but at a moderate pace - that's just the reality at hand.  Still, it's a good thing that oil seems to be falling a bit - whether it will continue to do so or spike up again is beyond my ken.
     It also appears that we're on the cusp of a major period of Global Cooling [thank you Josh for the link].  Yep, that's right, it's getting downright chilly out there...
     So, this might make folks think we don't need cars powered by lithium batteries and hydrogen, better solar cells, and so on yada etcetera.  Couldn't be farther from the truth, mein froinds.  You see, working on such cool stuff has, to this admittedly jaded fellow, not a damn thing to do with 'saving the planet' or some such nonsense.  In fact, the main flaw in all attempts to promote such newfangled gear is that those who want it try to convert others into 'environmentalists', which, of course, is bullshit.  Instead of such hokum, I suggest a straightforward sales pitch - we're going to save money in the long run, be freer with regard to foreign economic and strategic policy, and have a hell of a lot of fun in the bargain.
     It's basically the pitch my people use to sell windows - yes, yes, I know, move on, won't you?  We say, basically, we can save you around 40% on your energy usage [we pay the difference if you don't], and it won't make a huge difference in your budget.  So, you can have a permanent and ever increasing energy surcharge, or you can have some temporary payments, and after it's all over, pocket the difference.  That's it, really.  Doesn't really matter if we've got Glogal Warming amock, or Global Cooling cutting the demand for snow-cones around the globe; nor does it matter what you think of the much maligned 'carbon footprint'.  It's a matter of economic practicality, not Philosophical Good and Evil.
     What's more, it really is time for the internal-combustion engine - a marvel of ingenuity, a beautiful thing to tear down, build up, and a delightful thing to torque off its mount any day - might just have to go the way of all things.  I'm talking about innovating in battery, hydrogen, and other systems for the sheer fun and challenge of it.  In short, to the question, 'Why build a hydrogen powered/battery powered car of great range, horsepower, and efficiency?' I answer, in the end, 'Why not?'
     There you have it - economic prudence meets strategic liberty meets playful whimsy, which is always a good thing.  So, while I am what the kids call 'green', I feel no need to paint anyone else in order to urge folks to take up new challenges and opportunities this side of the eschaton.
     Peace out.

     You may or may not have noticed the silence around here.  I've a new position, with all sorts of goodness to go along with it, that has me back in the field most of the day and into the evening.  Yes, yes, I get to drive all over creation again.  We call that a write-off...  [Really, do you guys in Britain have to pay a tax to put your new car, for which you've paid tax and value-added tax, on the road?]
     Well, the result is that I've got more responsibility and thus less free time during the day, which for you, dear readers and friends of all things Endlessly Rocking, means fewer posts.  Try to carry on.
     Peace out.

     Now that I have your attention...
     Here are a few things you should never, ever write, say, or sing.

     Never step up; only baseball players may step up to the plate;
     you shall not multitask;
     never shall you find a book, movie, play, poem, or passage of scripture nourishing;
     parenting shall be prohibited in perpetuity;
     birthing is an abomination;
     of course, I needn't dilate anymore on how we cannot, and shall not, ongo, hence, nothing and no one can ever be ongoing;
     really now, are you pretentious enough to think yourself multicultural?
     teen signifies nothing but pain, while tween signifies nothing at all;
     don't you dare affirm anyone;
     flee the hermeneutical circle-jerk;
     there's got to be a law in Leviticus against resources, human, natural, or other - you must especially guard against resources for preaching, pastoral care, postcolonial hermeneutical rumination, and the like;
     I for one don't want to hear how spiritual you are [note well - the word spiritual remains licit in most other usages];
     never be authentic - a fake you is probably better than the bonehead you really are;
     there is no such thing as contextuality, and if you have to use the clunky contextual, please do so as part of a joke so disgusting as to make 'The Aristocrats' seem like a reading from the Book of Common Prayer;
     to pick up a thread, remember that mothering rhymes with smothering;
     reprobated from and for all eternity is God-talk;
     and finally, tell me someone, just what the hell is a Godself?!

Mysterium


     Soon the last flash of diffused and refracted light from the vanished sun would itself disappear in the darkness.  Already the breeze had turned colder as it scattered petals in a tiny tornado of color. 
     He caught and held one between his thumb and middle finger.  It was an oval elongated along the horizontal axis, pulled just a bit to one side.  Three parallel veins ran down the center.  Like the retreating clouds, it was purple, and felt to his fingertips like velvet.  Once again he regretted that he never learned the names of flowers like this.
     He tucked the petal between two pages near the end of his book, tossed the book onto the table, then took another swig of bourbon, swatted at a mosquito.  In just the time it took for him to do all this, the remnants of daylight vanished.  Yes, yes, all was going dark - only an ever-diminishing line of amber and violet light streaked across the horizon to the west.
     Still, he waited.  He waited, and he drank, and he waited a while longer. 
     Waited and waited for what, for whom?
     It was like this - something was coming.  He could feel it now.  He knew not what or who it was, but something was coming.  He only had to wait for it, wait for it and stay awake.  Were he to sleep any more he would miss it when it came.  So, he stretched and twisted a bit in his chair, sat up a little more - to slouch would be to risk sleep.
     How did this come about, that a man who had by turns wandered and slept now sought to stay awake in one place and await the coming of he knew not what?  How could he...
     Seized with terror he froze.  The breeze had stopped and the birds had gone silent and no more did waves gently lap at the shore just down from his house.  All was still, so very still.  He began to sweat as the dark seemed to press upon him.   In the stillness all he could hear was his own rapid breathing. 
     He resolved to wait in this new, palpable dark, certain that it was a trick of the night itself.   He poured another glass by feel in the dark and rubbed the back of his neck.  Yes, waiting was harder than he thought it would be.  
     He tried once more to focus his attention.  Tonight, he thought, tonight it will come.  If I sleep it will pass me by.
     So there he waited, the night morphing into depthless nothingness, all still and quiet and void, his house all dark and gone, as he waited and waited.
     
     The next morning, he awoke with a start and fell out of his chair.  Picking himself up, he brushed at his shirt, which was now torn and soiled with dirt and blood.  He looked at his watch - nearly eleven.  The empty bottle lay on its side on the tabletop in a pool of bourbon, while shards of his glass lay scattered about the patio.  He had a small cut on his lip, and his left eye was swollen and bruised.  He looked at his hands - knuckles bloodied, he stretched out his fingers and then opened and closed his fists to work out inexplicable pain. 
     Stumbling into his yard, he looked all around - his house untouched, his yard immaculate, the bay serene, the azure sky alight.  All was well. 
     His right leg hurt with something like sciatic pain only worse as he limped down to the water's edge.  It grew hot as he contemplated first the bay itself and then the houses along the far shore.  
     Then, with difficulty he knelt down, one leg at a time, onto the sand.  Kneeling thus he bowed low to reach the water, and washed his bloodied hands and splashed his face and neck.  The cold water ran down his back and chest as he lowered himself onto the sand to sit with his arms around his knees.  He was in pain but he did not care, for he knew that he would never go home again, never be seen again, that he would in fact melt into the afternoon haze. 
     To his surprise he started to laugh, quietly at first, and then louder and louder, until his laughter echoed across the bay. 

     For those of you wondering just what the hell Top Gear is and why it's so damn excellent, you can find all you need to know at the Top Gear website [clever, eh?].
     Just for the heck of it, other cool shows include Dinner:  Impossible, This Old House, most of the other programs on the Do It Yourself Network, etc. 

     Last week, N T Wright found himself the guest on the Steven Colber Repor.  He gamely held his own, but really seemed out of his depth.  I mean, 'life after life after death' ain't a soundbite destined to win over the masses to Wright's relatively traditional view of the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come.  Only us theologicalistical geeks get what the Seven Headed Bishop of Durham signifies with such a slogan.
     I would much rather see Wright on Top Gear.  He could talk about his MG and how a love for such a thing might, if held with a dash of eschatological reserve and a soupçon of a gratitude to the creator of all things seen and unseen, might just be pleasant and helpful.  Of course, he would most likely go off on Medieval Badness [it's apparently all about Platonism, or something like that], and that just might kill the mood.  Better to pair him with A N Williams, would could descant at length on Augustine and the real very Good wrought by the much abused African Father.  Then, of course, Wright and Williams could take turns buckling in for The Lap - I predict a close call.
     In case you haven't figured it out yet, I think Top Gear is quite possibly one of the most damn fine things I've found in a long, long while...
     Peace out.

     So, I really hate the title of that short story found a couple of posts below. 

     I just learned that George Carlin has died.  This, dear reader, makes me quite sad.

Mysterium

     Soon the last flash of diffused and refracted light from the vanished sun would itself disappear in the darkness.  Already the breeze had turned colder as it scattered petals in a tiny tornado of color. 
     He caught and held one between his thumb and middle finger.  It was an oval elongated along the horizontal axis, pulled just a bit to one side.  Three parallel veins ran down the center.  Like the retreating clouds, it was purple, and felt to his fingertips like velvet.  Once again he regretted that he never learned the names of flowers like this.
     He tucked the petal between two pages near the end of his book, tossed the book onto the table, then took another swig of bourbon, swatted at a mosquito.  In just the time it took for him to do all this, the remnants of daylight vanished.  Yes, yes, all was going dark - only an ever-diminishing line of amber and violet light streaked across the horizon to the west.
     Still, he waited.  He waited, and he drank, and he waited a while longer. 
     Waited and waited for what, for whom?
     It was like this - something was coming.  He could feel it now.  He knew not what or who it was, but something was coming.  He only had to wait for it, wait for it and stay awake.  Were he to sleep any more he would miss it when it came.  So, he stretched and twisted a bit in his chair, sat up a little more - to slouch would be to risk sleep.
     How did this come about, that a man who had by turns wandered and slept now sought to stay awake in one place and await the coming of he knew not what?  How could he...
     Seized with terror he froze.  The breeze had stopped and the birds had gone silent and no more did waves gently lap at the shore just down from his house.  All was still, so very still.  He began to sweat as the dark seemed to press upon him.   In the stillness all he could hear was his own rapid breathing. 
     He resolved to wait in this new, palpable dark, certain that it was a trick of the night itself.   He poured another glass by feel in the dark and rubbed the back of his neck.  Yes, waiting was harder than he thought it would be.  
     He tried once more to focus his attention.  Tonight, he thought, tonight it will come.  If I sleep it will pass me by.
     So there he waited, the night morphing into depthless nothingness, all still and quiet and void, his house all dark and gone, as he waited and waited.
     
     The next morning, he awoke with a start and fell out of his chair.  Picking himself up, he brushed at his shirt, which was now torn and soiled with dirt and blood.  He looked at his watch - nearly eleven.  The empty bottle lay on its side on the tabletop in a pool of bourbon, while shards of his glass lay scattered about the patio.  He had a small cut on his lip, and his left eye was swollen and bruised.  He looked at his hands - knuckles bloodied, he stretched out his fingers and then opened and closed his fists to work out inexplicable pain. 
     Stumbling into his yard, he looked all around - his house untouched, his yard immaculate, the bay serene, the azure sky alight.  All was well.  
     His right leg hurt with something like sciatic pain only worse as he limped down to the water's edge.  It grew hot as he contemplated first the bay itself and then the houses along the far shore.  
     Then, with difficulty he knelt down, one leg at a time, onto the sand.  Kneeling thus he bowed low to reach the water, and washed his bloodied hands and splashed his face and neck.  The cold water ran down his back and chest as he lowered himself onto the sand to sit with his arms around his knees. 
     He was in pain, but did not care.  His clothes were stuck to him, ruined by dirt, blood, and water, but he did not care.  In fact, to his surprise he started to quietly laugh. 
     Something had come, would come again - would come perhaps that day.  
     Once again he had only to wait. 

 

Hint of Homecoming

After Loren Eiseley


For all my protests, all my sense of time
and place, I must not want to find the center,
the ancient home - no lasting city suits
me now and ever though I'll take some sleepless
temporary space in which to hear
the word, certain and gratuitous, enjoying
all these strange hours in a twilit passage.
 
Yet, while working in the waning night
high waves wash over the room, eroding it
like some Atlantic shoreline in a hurricane -
it becomes an estuary filling beneath
the Milky Way, reeling as the planet spins
and whips about a well of buckled space;  
then I realize all at once, I'm always at home.

     More Weather approaches.  We've got warnings and watches all over the place.
     You know, this part of Global Climate Change kind of sucks.

     So, taking a break here from bailing out the basement and calling our landlord to let him know that he has to replace the casement windows down there, not to mention the window in my study.  You know, it's rather disconcerting when you find water cascading down the inside of a window and pooling on the floor.  Oh, and I really like the water damage to our dining room ceiling.
     Yes, that's right, we had some Weather in these parts.  It's funny, folks in Columbus are so obsessed with weather, or at least our local TV stations are so obsessed with it, that when the Real Thing comes along, most of 'em are just baffled.  Oh well, so it goes [but where it's goin' some happen to know].
     High, dangerous winds, squalls of rain and hail parallel to the ground, huge maples toppled, houses crushed, cars totaled - there was some of that.  We had some flooding here and there for about an hour.  Nothing like what others in the Midwest have to face, but annoying nonetheless.  And, and, the power died about five in the afternoon at my place.  We had to rush our perishable food to a friend's house on the North Side.
     Highly localized the storm was, focused as it were right, well, right over the Southeast Side it seemed.  A friend told me he had never seen rain and hail quite like that.  I replied that I have - during a hurricane.
    Surreal was the aftermath.  I drove about in my truck to see what was up, and found much of the expected - folks taking chainsaws to downed trees in their front yards, an insane amount of debris all over the roads, shingles and sheeting from roofs scattered about.  I discovered, however, that there is one thing folks must do after a disaster major or minor.
     They must come out and walk their dogs.
     That's right, I saw dozens upon dozens of citizens walking their dogs.  They walked their dogs in the middle of the street, on the sidewalks, through neighbors' yards.  Some had babies in strollers as well, but ubiquitous were the dogs.  It was like a movie - some mysterious force compelled 'em, as in 'Must walk dog.  Must wander aimlessly with dog.'
     Weird, I tells ya. 

     My froind J Random Hermeneut states, in a comment to the post below that pulls you in with talk of despair, only to wow you with random facts about Hindu religion and the prehistoric record of the prog rock movement, like thusly - 'as for me and my house Supper's Ready and The Return of the Giant Hogweed trump Roundabout any day'.
     For sheer imagination, formal daring, and thematic depth, I'd have to agree.  Why?  Apocalypse in 9/8, anyone?  And who else but Genesis could have given us 'Eschaton and Istacon and their band of merry men'?  Oh, and the whole Ovidian midsection - 'mud to mad to man to dad, dad diddly office, dad diddly office' - culminating in Narcissus's flowering is simply brilliant.  As for the Hogweed, why, from the start you get the likes of this - 'Long ago, in the Russian hills a Victorian explorer found the regal Hogweed by a marsh, he captured it and brought it home...' [can't remember where the line breaks go, and am far too lazy to look 'em up on the interthingy].
     Oh, how great is that?
     Still, I find 'Roundabout' and the like delightfully baroque and playful, if a tad incomprehensible.  'I'll be the roundabout; the words will make you out and out; I'll spend the day your way...' - I mean, like, what the hell dude?  Whatever, I love it.
     As for punk and prog, yin and yang, Green Day and ELP [sheesh], this reader understands, oh, he understands.  One without the other is like, well, barbeque ribs without a side of grilled shrimp...
     Peace out.

     'Then the time of exile began, the endless search for justification, the aimless nostalgia, the most painful, the most heartbreaking questions, those of the heart which asks itself, where can I feel at home?'