No code please. 

Shore

Children are picking through the garbage with ravaged looks on their faces and she is singing. One day that voice will be remembered just as those of Maria Callas and Victoria de los Angeles were remembered. Or, not to be seen as being sexist or racist, the voices of Paul Robeson or Pavarotti. 

The children will not be, are not, remembered, though, unless we are prompted by something to make the emotional effort to look these things in the eye, as they are, not as they should be.

Noh theatre intrigues me. As do all efforts to communicate without the use of words.

Just then the holocaust. Just then the killing fields and the skulls photographed so beautifully that they become almost religious: these tableaux would not be out of place in cathedral, basilica, temple or mosque. Too many, far too many, unacceptably many, have been slaughtered in the name of the divine to permit the divine any claim to usefulness, except, perhaps, sometimes, as a comfort for those assaulted by grief or mystified by failure to understand that some things are forever beyond us.. Even that, though, is no longer enough justification.

And the Ganges. The dead burning by the shores. The redemption to be found in water. The lotus candles floating into the light. These things are so suggestive and so seductive one is hard pressed not to infer the numinous. One must be strong. One must keep one’s eyes open and sharply focused. The redemption can be real, but that is not enough to support the dangerous, fatal theistic nonsense.

Look it in the eyes. Always look it in the eyes, even until the eyes tire. And never stop. And if it seems that there are patterns to things, always suspect them, for we make patterns where there are none.

It has never been about finding god. It has always and ever will be about losing oneself.

Well

"Is this to be an 'empathy' test?  the capillary dilation of the so-called blush response, fluctuation of the pupil. Involuntary dilation of the iris."

"We call it Voight-Kampf for short."

                            "Mr. Deckard, Doctor Eldon Tyrell . . . "

"Demonstrate it.  I want to see it work."

                                                            " . . . Where's the subject?"

"I want to see it work on a person.  I want to see a negative before I provide you with a positive."

                                                             "What's that going to prove?"

"Indulge me."

                                                             "on you?"

"Try her."

(bridge design two)

The Floating Bridge of Dreams

Speech as often fails me here.

(crushed in the press)

I admit to allowing possibility to crush actuality.  I admit to not admitting.  I admit to being.  I admit to being nothing.

beta

Be, is, am, were, the, was, shall, will.

sanctuary

If they are unlucky they shelter from the dessicating sun under canvas; if they are lucky they have already died.  If they are exceedingly, improbably lucky, they died quickly.

(Let me see that map.

-- We should be here.  We should, we should be here, shouldn't we?

--  Some suggest so.

-- And the others?

-- Which others do you mean?

-- The others, who do not suppose we should be here.  What do they think?

-- Otherwise.

-- Que?

-- They keep their own counsel.

-- But you think we should be here?  (Hoping that something will stick in its mind.)

-- (                               .)

-- Would you mind being a little less oblique?

-- You might not take to us if we were acute.

-- Okay.  I do not know what 'should' actually means, and without those data your question is eviscerated of meaning.