Category: Earth

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Earth fiction

**** Breaking News ****

findthemartianbaby

The interactive game for Luke St James’ new film, Lamda Six has gone viral, with just under 40 million retweets in the first five hours since its release. The $200,000 reward sparked widespread protests in Pakistan. The film is currently being shot on location in Canada and is scheduled to be released on February 14, 2016. SB Catalog.

earthlivesmatter2

Leaked documents concerning an alleged multinational Gobi Desert operation, insider trading, a new Mars mission and asteroid mining plans have ignited protests around Europe. SB Catalog.

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Earth

Boola Boola

Lulu
Ninety five.

Harriet
Okay, how many more grids left? And we haven’t covered the north side.

Lulu
I now understand that GIS is really sucky. There’s too much data, and none of it is live. We need access to several satellites and military grade software if we are ever going to get this done in time.

Harriet
Not necessarily. We could use drones and do the physical search that way. I mean, do you know anyone who could lend us a few drones?

Lulu
You mean, my father? If he agrees to lend us drones, which he won’t because this is just a game to promote Luke St James’s new blockbuster movie, how can we use them effectively, if we have only two sets of eyes?

Harriet
I have an idea. Come with me.

:::::::
….. ….. …..
:::::

Harriet
Hello, bitches.

Rori
What up.

Harriet
Drop everything and come with me.

Bart
All of us?

Harriet
Yes, all of you.

Heath
Yes, Princess.

Harriet
I’ll give you a free pass Heath, because you’re seriously into me. And I might throw some at you later.

Bart
What’s this all about?

Harriet
The new interactive game, “Find the Martian Spaceship” with “Find the Martian Boy” for Lamda Six. My darling, St Lucas, apparently came up with the concept himself.

Heath
Bad ass concept. I mean, it’s so simple and so state of the art. It’s got 3D animated aliens and did you see the ship designs? Too cool.

Lulu
Yeah, Icelandic runes were an unexpected artistic touch. I liked how they draw in all the world cultures we normally don’t get to see in movies.

Harriet
Guys! I’m in charge of the presentation.

Bart
The Martians’ face tattoos resemble Maori, which is extremely cool in itself.

Rori
Bart and I are playing right now. We’re betting on the North Pole.

Bart
We’re sharing the two hundred thousand dollar grand prize. I mean, Icelandic runes means, Lapland, et cetera. Big clue. Winners!

Josh
I have Nero’s econ mock exam tomorrow.

Heath
Pssht! He’s hot for you. Just do a strip tease to calm him down, and he’ll pass you with flying colours.

Josh
You know, you should really…

Harriet
Is anyone here going to listen to me?

Bart
I’m listening.

Harriet
I was thinking, we pool our human resources and split the prize money equally. Not that this is about money. This is about pride, people. Hansel! Join us.

Hansel
Hiya.

Harriet
I was saying, everyone is playing this new game “Find the Martian Spaceship”. You have heard of it.

Hansel
I have, and so has everyone who’s breathing. I just read that the launch announcement got thirty eight million retweets in the first four hours. The Lamda Six website’s crashed now, by the way. There are mirror sites popping up by the minute. This game is literally breaking the Internet.

Rori
Take that, Kim Kardashian’s butt! Although, physically, it’s like literally looking for a needle in a haystack. I meant the game, not her “asset.”

Harriet
Can I please just get on with my presentation? It is seriously like a preschool in here. As I was saying, luckily, I have a brilliant idea. Lulu and I have been using GIS software we borrowed from the lab to analyse the terrain in specific locations. We haven’t been able to come up with anything because, and this did not occur to us before, but we’re looking at archived images of terrain.

Heath
Right…that makes sense. But we can’t like, use satellites.

Harriet
No. We can use drones. Lulu’s Dad owns the world’s largest drone manufacturing company. She is on the phone with him right now. I don’t know what she’ll say to convince him, but we have to assume that she will get permission. Plus, we’re both geography majors, so it’s like, educational. It’ll be fine.

Hansel
I admire your confidence.

Harriet
Don’t condescend. Alright. Are we all together?

Josh
Isn’t it like, not cost effective to use drones? I mean, they’re expensive and the cost of operating them would be more than the prize money.

Harriet
Get over yourself, Josh. You’re still an under graduate. Who cares about the cost, people? We can’t let the Oxford team steal our glory. I found out this morning that they’re seriously organised. They have taken over a whole dormitory and are using it as a command centre.

Bart
No way!

Harriet
Yes way.

Rori
How do you know that?

Harriet
A certain geography professor has a crush on me from my short summer studies there last year. I think he was trying to impress me. We, on the other hand, are all over the place. Don’t you have any pride in your school? For the next seventeen hours, we will sweat and bleed to win the game. We use our superior assets, which are my brains, and your eyes and forefingers. It’s the perfect combination.

Bart
Yes, Princess. So, how does this work?

Harriet
First, let me explain why satellites won’t work. Remote sensing applications, that is the technical term for how satellites “see” things on the ground, have limitations. These are overpass frequency, timing and clear daytime skies. However, with drones, we can overcome all these limitations. Here’s how we will do that. While Lulu’s getting her Dad’s drones online, we need to become experienced observers. Let’s use the archived images to have an idea of what the terrain looks like normally. Then, we can see immediately what’s different about the location over the time period. We are looking at specific spatial patterns and how they change in time.

Hansel
What you’re saying is that while the Oxford team is wasting time looking at stale footage of the ground, we will be looking at the fresh, raw, real time information?

Harriet
Prexactly.

Hansel
Let me grab my laptop. You guys in?

Josh, Rori, Bart
Hell, yeah!

 

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Earth

Time minus 29 hours 40 minutes

St Lucas
Storm, Marcus, I was pleasantly surprised you guys were even awake, much less working at four in the morning.

Storm
A client is doing a live interview in Melbourne at the moment, and we need to monitor all the media outlets here and in London. We tend to babysit our projects until they’re complete.

St Lucas
What did you both do to your hair? Marcus, pink looks beautiful with your skin tone.

Marcus
Thanks. I chickened out at the last minute. Storm, however, went hell for steel grey.

St Lucas
That’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen.

Storm
Thank you.

St Lucas
Well, you guys are professional, discreet and super talented magicians. Which is why I’m here.

Marcus
We’re listening.

St Lucas
This upcoming assignment is going to be the mad wood of mass marketing. But first, we need a sanctuary. We need a cone of silence.

Marcus
Got it. Turning off mobile devices.

Storm
Unplug the phone.

Marcus
I’ll set the windows to opaque. And…let us pray.

St Lucas
I need a publicity blitz the likes of which has never been seen. I need all eyes on this. I need everyone eating, drinking, dreaming this.

Storm
We’re with you. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess.

St Lucas
To that extent. Ladies, I want The Rapture. I need you to blur the lines between fiction and non fiction. It’s for an upcoming movie. But I want it to look like it’s not a movie.

Storm
Alright.

St Lucas
When I say “blur the lines”, I mean that elements of the campaign have to look real. If…someone …. an objective … statistician, let’s say, were looking at the data, that person should be convinced that this is real.

Storm
Alright.

St Lucas
The outcomes could be ordinary people lobbying the Government to release secrets. I want CSpan, PBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, CNN, BBC, Sky and Al Jazeera, did I miss anyone? Covering a controversy we engineered, twenty four, seven, three sixty five. Wars will cease fire to catch the latest details. I want so much noise about it that when the film comes out, people will not even know they were victims of an epic brainwash.

Marcus
Okay, right away I can think of a few things we can bounce off you.

St Lucas
Before you do that, there’s one more thing. And this is really important. I need all of this to happen in the next twenty nine hours and … thirty minutes. That’s why I’m here. I need the Wonder Twins.

Marcus
We’ve done this before, so we have an idea what you need. You’re saying you need a fake campaign to start a real one. Right?

St Lucas
Yes. Exactly.

Storm
We can do that. First, we need to understand exactly what we’re working with.

St Lucas
Alright. Look at these stills.

Categories
Earth

Rabbit out of a Hat

St Lucas
Hello, Beth.

Lilibeth
Mid stroke?

St Lucas
Yes, literally. I just finished ninety nine laps in the pool.

Lilibeth
Show off. Here is the thing. Your grey friend popped up. Scared the crap out of me just now. He’s for real. He is in a dark room somewhere, and he is unconscious.

St Lucas
So you believe me.

Lilibeth
Yeah. But there’s a glitch. I … my special … technique only works with people who know where they are. Which is usually the case with criminals, fugitives, and the like. They have plans and intentions, and I can see what they are going to do. I can be five moves ahead of them. It’s visual data, that I use and …well your friend is …unaware of our… ahm. He’s never been here before so, I can’t find him with visual data from his reference point. That means I have to do some actual sleuthing.

St Lucas
Right.

Lilibeth
Luckily, I have mad skills. But I’m going to need you to pull a rabbit out of a hat. You have star power. I need you to use your influence somehow to get every person on Earth with Internet access looking for your friend.

St Lucas
That’s…

Lilibeth
Just hear me out. You’re going to get them to look but, they can’t know what they’re really looking for. They have to think it’s real. I need all eyes on every agency in the world that could possibly have picked up your friend. I want them bombarded with requests for information. This is important because we can cross check patterns in the movement of data we have already collected for analysis at my base of operations, if we can get some serious amplification. It’s like injecting dye into a patient’s arteries when you’re looking for an aneurysm. I gather from their advanced technology that our Martian friends are monitoring us remotely. We need to shout loud and clear that we are looking for the child. What I’m saying is, in order to demonstrate that we’re busy working, I’m going to need you to start an information war, but on a global scale.

St Lucas
I get it. You have two brains, and I’m very grateful for that. So you want me to be in front of it?

Lilibeth
On the sides, but there. I don’t want anything in your past or present to overtake the situation. Your friend might be safe if we can keep the people holding him distracted for long enough. We need to either find his exact location or have him ourselves before his father gets here with those fierce looking people in the screen grabs. I need to get moving. It’s now time minus thirty hours.

St Lucas
The kind of operation you’re talking about will need more time than that, but okay, I have access to a few geniuses right here in New York.

Lilibeth
Rabbit out of a hat. Pull on it.

St Lucas
I’ll get on it, right now.

Lilibeth
Good, catch me up later. Siemus!

Siemus
Ma’am.

Lilibeth
Climb into bed with me… … … … … Why are you soft?

Siemus
I think it’s unprofessional to respond.

Lilibeth
Damned Navy Seals discipline school. Alright… Get out… Oh, and while you’re at it, get that fat-ass bitch on the phone.

Siemus
Which one, Ma’am?

Lilibeth
The half ton Disneyland squatter who bled all over my bed last week. I had to knead a full pound of flesh to find his disco stick. While he was rambling incoherently, he mentioned something interesting and I now know it’s going to help my client.

Siemus
Right away, Ma’am.

:::::  …  :::::
:::::  …  :::::

Lilibeth
Hello, Peter, my Loch Sex Monster. Baby, sweetie, honey, darling.

Joseph
Hi, baby, I miss you.

Lilibeth
I miss you too, baby. Ahm, I need your help. I’m doing research for a children’s book I’m writing, and I thought you could, like, you know, help me.

Joseph
Oh, that’s so sweet, baby. Sure, anything for you.

Lilibeth
Well, it’s about visitors from…I feel so silly saying this… other..worlds… And I thought your friend you mentioned, the one in Los Angeles, with the radio show, could have material for my project. Would you be good enough to, like, let me have his information? I mean of course, unless…

Joseph
No, no, no. It’s fine, I’m sure he’ll be so flattered that anyone’s paying attention to him.

Lilibeth
You know, everyone has value, even if we don’t agree with them.

Joseph
You’re so mature, baby.

Lilibeth
Thank you, baby. I have to go, because I have a meeting with my publisher. Can you text me the information? Please?

Joseph
Of course, honey. I love you, baby.

Lilibeth
I love you too, Peter.

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Earth

Lilibeth

St Lucas
Good evening, Miss…

Lilibeth
Do not be fooled by the Givenchy slip. I have two brains. I needed to get here in a hurry, because… I was … doing something.

St Lucas
I apologise. And I thank you for coming here at such short notice.

Lilibeth
One more thing. Call me Lilibeth, Beth, Li, Libeth, Lili, bitch, baby, honey, sweetie. Just don’t call me Miss. Sorry, sweetie.

St Lucas
Actually, Libeth, my daughter is the client. I’m just here for supervision.

Lilibeth
What’s the problem, sweetie?

Sami
Daddy?

St Lucas
It’s okay, honey.

Sami
My friend is lost. I think he wanted to surprise me for Valentine’s Day. His father is scared. We have to find him…we don’t know where he is.

Lilibeth
I feel like I’m missing something.

Sami
He’s from Mars.

Lilibeth
You mean Xenu.

St Lucas
She means Mars.

Lilibeth
Are you kidding? Is this some Scientology conversion field trip?

St Lucas
Contrary to rumours, I am…we are…Catholic.

Lilibeth
Fine, then this is some Hollywood film experiment. I hope I’m not being pranked because I don’t care how much you’re worth, I will destroy you for wasting my time.

St Lucas
No need. Honey, show Lilibeth your phone. It’s the text message transcripts.

Lilibeth
Lack of punctuation and a familiar oddness about the phrasing. It looks like her friend is a Scandinavian who used Google’s translation software patched with Siri to communicate. Which means, he’s human.

Sami
He said their language sounds like Icelandic.

Lilibeth
This is interesting. I am Icelandic. See why I have this conspiracy theory going around in my head?

St Lucas
She and her friend communicated through Siri for a few days last year. Then, he suddenly stopped talking to her. Shortly after that, his father FaceTimed several times over the last year to say he is on his way here … screen grab… which is how I got involved, and I can vouch for the veracity of this document, but I’m an actor and therefore ….

Lilibeth
Woah… Greys. There are quite a number of grey people in this screen grab. I mean, this is great CGI. I saw Avatar. It was … Meh! Nah… Baby girl, why are you crying?

St Lucas
Honey, sweetheart.

Lilibeth
Dude, that’s mean.

St Lucas
I beg your pardon.

Lilibeth
You fed your child crap about aliens from Mars and now she’s a mess. Let’s say that I believe that you believe this is true. How do you know it’s not a prank caller trying to extort you for money?

St Lucas
Alright. I spent the last year questioning my sanity. I had phones taken apart, hacked and traced at Yale University’s Computer Science Department. I was determined to find and destroy whoever was harassing my daughter. Okay, there is no source of data. These …people… beings… pop up in any device. I replace a phone, the new phone turns on, like it’s being accessed remotely, with the full message history of every mobile phone I’ve ever owned.

Lilibeth
Fix it, Yeezus.

St Lucas
Now, you tell me, which phone company on this planet offers that kind of service? I didn’t expect you to believe her, or me, but … You are the world’s best bounty hunter, with a one hundred percent success rate.

Lilibeth
This is true.

St Lucas
I just thought you’d have a clue as to where we could look. The boy is about my daughter’s age. He’s spent a year scared and alone in a damaged spaceship, he can’t call home. He can’t turn back. His father estimates that he has crash landed just today, somewhere here on Earth. Naturally, he is frantic. We don’t know how to look for him. I don’t have access to things. I can’t just go to the State Department.

Lilibeth
Did you try Google Earth?

Sami
Yes. Daddy and I looked everywhere.

Lilibeth
Ahhh! God, I can’t understand …what’s happening?

Sami
Please help me find my friend?

Lilibeth
Do you know why I’m the best at my job, sweetie?

Sami
Why’s that?

Lilibeth
I cheat. I know the answer to the question before someone asks me the question. Then I pretend I don’t know, and get lots of money when I, you know, reverse engineer my way to the …

St Lucas
Are you kidding me?

Lilibeth
Do not judge me, Planet Xenu.

St Lucas
That… How… ? I just said…

Lilibeth
You want me to believe that some Martian kid got lost on Earth, but you don’t accept that I can see beyond seeing.

St Lucas
I’m not making this up.

Lilibeth
I want to warn you about the consequences of lying to me. I will see the answer to your goddamn question.

St Lucas
I promise you.

Lilibeth
I find out this meeting is part of a hidden camera movie promotion zap mama, I’m coming to your office, with my team. I’ll smash shit.

St Lucas
I swear to you, I would never bring my daughter into this, if this were some joke.

Lilibeth
Alright, I’ll make you both a deal. If your friend exists, if he exists, I’ll find him for free because I do not charge children. You on the other hand, Xenu, set that overpriced timepiece. According to these messages, we have thirty-six hours before your stalkers do something big. I will get to the bottom of this il-nana, and if you’re responsible… I need your phone on at all times. I don’t care if you’re mid stroke, stop and pick up. Bye, sweetie.

Sami
Thank you, Libeth.

St Lucas
Thank you, Lilibeth.

Lilibeth
Fuck you, later.

Categories
Earth Mars

February 13, 2014

Siri/Ki
Hello again. How are you.

Sami
Hello Ki. I’m happy.

Siri/Ki
What did you do today.

Sami
I went to Central Park.

Siri/Ki
Do you go to Central Park every day.

Sami
No, but I go outside every day.

Siri/Ki
What is your favourite protective equipment.

Sami
Equipment?

Siri/Ki
Yes, things to protect your body for going outside.

Sami
I don’t use anything. But sometimes people take my picture. Mother protects me.

Siri/Ki
I understand. You are seen by everyone. My nurse and my father protect me too. What’s this one. There is a lot of data.

Sami
It’s a heart. Heart means “love.” Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Many people do something nice for people they love.

Siri/Ki
Only that day.

Sami
Yes.

Siri/Ki
That’s sad.

Sami
It’s nice. You have to give presents to show you love the person.

Siri/Ki
I don’t understand. I never have presents.

Sami
I get lots of presents on Valentine’s Day. I feel happy when I get a special surprise. When my father is far away, he takes a holiday to hang out with me.

Siri/Ki
Hang out with.

Sami
Yes. Just talk, or play a game. Or eat.

Siri/Ki
That’s every day with Ni, my nurse. My father is working really far away. It takes two years to come home.

Sami
That’s sad.

Siri/Ki
It’s sad.

Sami
You can be my Valentine! I will make a special surprise for you.

Siri/Ki
I understand surprise. I am so very happy when my father does it. He sometimes arrives home two cycles early. Can I make one for you too.

Sami
Let’s make them now!

Siri/Ki
Yes. Let us.

Categories
Earth Mars

Section Three: Future Perfect

February 1 ‐ March 13

“Like all Explorers, we are drawn to discover what’s out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.”
Pema Chödrön, Buddhist nun, teacher, author and mother

Section Three of this installation flows above this header. The stories serve to test your notions of reality. Some conversation scripts are pure fiction, while others contain non fiction elements.

This is the third section of a fiction as art as fiction installation. It is presented in three sections: Ancient Past (all line up under the tag), Present Day (click to the bottom right of your screen to move up through the stories marked fiction) and now Future Perfect.

Lilibeth was introduced in Strip Minecraft. Her paternal ancestor, Stefán, was introduced in Section One. She’s inherited his gift, but it won’t help her do her job this time. You will meet her on February 18. Some scripts after Lilibeth appears are not safe for work, language wise. If you’re under eighteen, ask your favourite uncle to read those posts first.

Future Perfect started with a flashback to one year ago, and three adorable children on Red Star. This presentation introduces information that is essential to the final story, on March 13.

Back to the present day on Blue Star, we see a crisis situation unknown to the grown up players involved. The setup to that crisis was presented in one of the first posts of the previous section. Suction puts the Unknown Phenomenon in perspective.

Before that, we flashed back one year earlier to Red Star for an at home presentation by Ki’s cousins, Si and Gi. Presently, the stories February 13 and Sooner than at once will set up an interplanetary crisis situation.

Locker is in his promised new job, and tells off a pair of pampered beaurocrats. Later, a motley crew of two actors, the publicists Marcus and Storm and the not safe for work Lilibeth scramble to hold off a Martian invasion. She asks the famous actor, St Lucas to pull a public relations rabbit out of a hat. Before he visits Marcus and Storm, the disaster in the Gobi has somehow leaked into the public domain.

With three stories to go the multi pronged campaign is successful. Everyone is playing their part without knowing the full story. As it should be. The Martian armada has already arrived and scout teams are searching everywhere. On March 11, a showdown between Lilibeth and a government goon sees a win win resolution in favour of Peace on Earth. Every story has a happy ending and the reunion on March 13 will be warm, Martian style. Come back in the aftermath for an Easter Egg, because it’s that season.

Your warm support, courage and trust so far are much appreciated. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Categories
Earth Her Dark Arts marriage men women

End of Section Two

This header marks the end of Section Two of this installation. The scripts and art that follow this header, that have not been marked as “Asides” belong in this phase of the installation. Thank you for your warm support.

 

Categories
Earth Her Dark Arts

Denise

Martine
You called for a consult?

Paige
Thanks for coming in Dr. Russell. The patient is a female, mid- to late-forties, presenting with severe internal trauma after a traffic collision on Route 27 East. Her sternum was cracked open after she presented evidence of internal bleeding. Her aorta was torn just above the left ventricle.

Martine
How is she still alive?

Paige
We tentatively diagnosed her with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. I’m waiting for test results. If yes, it may have been undiagnosed. In which case, the accident triggered catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome.

Martine
A thrombotic storm.

Paige
Luckily for her, this caused her blood clotting factor to overreact at the trauma site. We were able to patch her up because her body did most of the work. We’re now worried that some clots might reach her brain, and undo all of this.

Martine
That’s what Dr. Fisher is here for.

Brooke
Yes, but there’s nothing I could do except apply blood thinners and hope they pass without incident. I am about to put her on full bypass and filter out any large clots from there.

Martine
Okay, so you guys have the thing under control.

Paige
That’s the thing, Dr. Russell. She was wearing this medallion when she was brought in from the accident site. Do you recognise it?

Martine
Yes, it’s the badge my father’s foundation gives to people who agree to submit to experimental heart surgery procedures in case of emergencies… Which is why I’m here.

Brooke
So, is there something you are empowered to do here?

Martine
Yes. My team has just finished testing a new three D printed bioceramic tube using fetal stem cells. Let me show it to you on my smartphone. Here. We fortified it with a positively charged copper ion coil to disinfect the patch site on an ongoing basis and to boost the immune system’s acceptance of the tubing.

Brooke
Obviously, you have no idea if it’ll work.

Martine
Obviously.

Paige
Dr. Fisher, please put the patient on bypass immediately, and in the meantime, Dr. Russell will prepare for the aorta patch with the new tubing. Nurse?

Hannah
Yes, doctor.

Paige
Can you tell Dr. Deza that we’re going through with the bypass and one other procedure and that she is to consult us for an update STAT?

Hannah
Yes, Ma’am.

Categories
Earth Her Dark Arts

Section Two: Present Day

January 21 ‐ February 1

Fictional posts and art go above this sticky header. There may be some not safe for work material, so please be over the age of consent in your country. The contents of this blog may not be safe for work, and that’s the best thing about it.

The preface explains what I’m doing in this installation. Some of the characters have appeared in previous stories, and they include Jupiter, Lara, Marcus and Storm.

If you’ve landed here from outside of the WordPress box, you may want to look at previous art projects including the sticky ones below, or fiction scripts. If you press the like or follow button or leave a comment, please make sure that your website information is correct otherwise, I won’t be able to find your blog.

My heartfelt gratitude goes to readers for your warm support for Section One.

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art Earth Her Dark Arts

End of Section One

Thank you for your warm gestures of support in this installation so far. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Mil gracias y mil abrazos. Gracias por su confianza y su atención. I thank you for your trust and attention.

I have attempted to explain the meaning of fiction stories in the first section in a reflection called Commemoration. If you have not read it as yet, please do. It ties the stories together.

The scripts posted above this note are set in the present day.

Warmly,
SB

Categories
Earth Her Dark Arts

Commemoration

There’s a rational explanation for everything, but we are not open minded creatures. We cannot do away with what we think we know. To bravely embrace the complex and the unknown, we have to first accept that some explanations are bigger than our capacity for understanding them. We may have to shed identities and associations as a result. Changing our minds can be scary.

I’ll illustrate my point with an interesting conversation I had last Saturday about an episode of House, MD (3.23 The Jerk). I wrote down the chemical formula for nitrogen, NO2, which someone said was “water”. I tried again with, seventy eight percent of the air’s composition? Ahhh… That. Nitrogen is the building block of protein molecules. Surely you learned this in tenth grade chemistry? No. Since I don’t have the chemical structure of a typical protein stored in memory, not that it would make a difference, I stated my point simply: some people’s bodies cannot break down nitrogen. As a result, they suffer liver damage. Therefore, those people cannot eat lean protein, or meat. They can have a small amount of protein from a vegetarian diet. Ahhhhh.

There are things I can’t understand, like Big Data. Even Big Data experts don’t get it. Because, it’s too big. Or SEO. Or Ariana Grande’s baby hairs. I will happily exchange a twenty minute overview or a five second glimpse for a four hour particle physics lecture or rewatch that five hour final between Nadal and Federer. I try to draw those comparisons when people tell me they can’t wrap their mind around something.

Ancient man had access to Big Data, but being free of bias, having recently emerged from the soup, he may have been more open to creating comfort and stability for his community. However, it might have been difficult for him to explain how he came by his information on social engineering, scholarship, exploration, geology, art and philosophy. So, he invented a Holiness to explain the source of his inspiration to build civilisations.

We are still limited in our understanding of the universe, so we will plod along in our absurd and often lethal interpretations of our predecessors’ methods of preserving their data for us. We don’t speak the same languages. Furthermore, subsequent civilisations destroyed, suppressed or distorted data that was not amenable to their political agendas.

To some degree, untruths have prevented us from devolving into a complete state of chaos, out of which we would need to work hard to recreate stable societies. Gomorrah was the centre of a civilisation more advanced than ours is today, and its destruction after an unforeseen seismic event illustrates what happens when we do not listen to learned counsel. In its aftermath, it was necessary to construct meaningless totems, and use these as reminders that we are not alone in the universe. In other words, ancient man made up something that we would understand just from the sight of it.

Sadly, we suck at interpreting information presented to us. We drive cars and talk to smart phones. We are closed minded because we believe our handling of gadgets makes us superior to those who have not. In truth, our attention to them is distracting us from turning on each other.

Let’s say that the boy on the savannah represents humans one hundred million years after we crawled out of the primordial soup. We were literally fish out of water. The boy grew up to be a man. He has no idea where his guidance came from just before the Deluge, as the sequence of events was presented to him as images.

But, the moon loomed large in his eyes as testament to his deliverance from cataclysmic changes in Earth’s climatology. The moon appears shortly before this change. It became a symbol of survival. The boy’s journey upward, to higher ground, was the first purposeful form of exploration ever undertaken. It is not moon worship that we are looking at, but a timeless commemoration of that moment of deliverance.

The Earth is a living breathing organism that shifts under our feet. It is a perfect living thing and boundless in its beauty. In a way, we are still fish out of water. It doesn’t matter what paleoclimatologists, geologists or biblical scholars tell you. No amount of digging or incanting can change how we got here, or help us truly know what happened in the past. We dig and we pray to escape the weight of a most pressing responsibility: We alone hold the future in our hands.
Update: February 2, 2015
Illustrating my point about “moon worship” is a recent article about Norse worship in Iceland. Örn Hilmarsson, high priest of Ásatrúarfélagið, said “I don’t believe anyone believes in a one-eyed man who is riding about on a horse with eight feet. We see the stories as poetic metaphors and a manifestation of the forces of nature and human psychology.” Membership in Ásatrúarfélagið is currently at 2,400 members.

Categories
Ancient Past Earth Her Dark Arts

Si me deseas

Rol
¿Cómo estás?

Sol
Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y tú?

Rol
Ha pasado demasiado tiempo.

Sol
Sí, eso es cierto. Pero mi hijo tuvo fiebre. Mi esposa y yo teníamos que traerle al boticario.

Rol
Lo lamento. ¿Está bien, tu hijo, ahora?

Sol
Sí. Por favor no me mires así.

Rol
¿Cómo?

Sol
Como si estuvieras a punto de devorarme.

Rol
Deseo lamerte la cara. Lentamente. Y después, tengo ganas de tocarte profundamente.

Sol
Por favor, debemos preparar por el Consejo.

Rol
¿Me deseas? Déjame acariciarte.

Sol
Sí, te deseo, pero hoy, no puedo.

Rol
¿Qué pasó? El otro día estuvimos en la pasión del fuego.

Sol
Tú solamente tienes ganas de beber de mi sangre.

Rol
No, no, no.

Sol
¡No me mientas!

Rol
Por favor, mi amor. Pueden oírnos. Tú me dijiste que a tí …

Sol
¡Basta ya!

Rol
Bueno. Podemos discontinuar, pero hazme el favor de creer que te quiero. Ven acá. Voy a besarte. Te he esperado desesperadamente. Déjame meter la lengua en tu boca.

Sol
Rol, por favor…

Rol
Ven acá.

Categories
Ancient Past Earth Her Dark Arts

The Pool

“The future is open and we are writing it moment to moment.”
Pema Chödrön, Buddhist nun, teacher and author

<< What if I asked you not to return home right now?

Lim
Who…?

<< If I made myself visible, you would go blind from the sheer stress on your visual cortex. The surge of energy would obliterate your neural pathways.

Lim
I can hear you. I can’t understand you. What language are you speaking?

<< I know. Hmmm… My brother and I are playing a game. He said that if I asked nicely, you would swim around for three more hours. He’s said I’m full of scorn for your species. I’m trying to reform.

Lim
Fraum? This is a trick. Pom!!! Stop. Come out.

<< He’s left you behind. He hasn’t gone to a better place, though. Well, not yet, at any rate.

Lim
First of all, I can’t see who is talking.

<< Please don’t go home now or else you will surely be killed.

Lim
Nonsense. No one can see the future. The Feast is over, Pom. No more festival tricks. Come out now.

<< You’re right. No one can see the future because there isn’t just one. We precisely calculate and see outcomes, in what you call the future, on any given string of intent.

Lim
String up in tent? That’s stupid! You’re stupid. Go away.

<< So be it. Ingracious beast.

The female twin pulls back to mull the situation over with her brother.

> You did not try hard enough.

<< His helical proteins fail to synchronise with this biosphere’s regenerative frequencies. That is consistent with his passive attempt at self erasure by swimming in that bottomless pool. Appropriate and amusing. I think we’ve made our point.

> His is not a significant loss. The data contained in his proteins do not contribute to evolutionary gains nor does it appear at any further point in the alternate timelines.

<< Good riddance. Let us leave him be.

Categories
art Earth

Age of Copper x Şençevik

Melek Z Şençevik
Melek Z Şençevik, owner, Handstamped Art, Turkey via Etsy

This year starts the Age of Copper, says Melek Z Şençevik, artist, designer and curator based in Turkey. I wholeheartedly agree, as I’m mesmerised by copper’s rustic aesthetic. Melek sells handmade accessories at Handstamped Art. I’ve been following her work on Etsy for over a year now. She’s enthusiastically agreed to let me add her handcrafted mastery as a practical accent to Earth’s fictional catalog.

Her design sense is mainly primitive and historical. Her designs are organic, handmade and one-of-a-kind. Melek graduated design school in Istanbul and started this business because, in her own words:

I’m from Earth, but I like to think I’m really from Venus. Ever since I’ve known myself, I started drawing and painting people around me. Art and music are my first loves. When I create a design, time stops and I’m together with my dear angels. Through colours, stones and other materials, I can see another world just beyond this one. I hear nature’s harmonious song in my ear. Sometimes the song weaves its way into my designs. I simply let them appear. In the past, we had the Stone Age and the Iron Age. In 2015, I would like to start the Age of Copper. Organic and natural, I’m a dreamer.

Melek works with raw stones, gemstones, organic beads, crystals, pearls, raw copper, 925 and 999 silver and genuine leather. For the time being, until they’re sold, a few of my favourites:

The Snow Queen ring in aquamarine and silver.

Seven copper bangles.

Organic earrings with baltic raw amber, kyanite, sea urchin,
black coral, african terrakotta, mali clay, shell, indian cow bone.

Moon Light earrings in citrine crystal, swarovski crystal elements and copper.

Gold chalcopyrite and pyrite copper cuff bracelet with raw stone.

Talisman necklace in raw stones, copper and natural hemp.

Medicine Bag in genuine fur and leather and decorated with
neolithic stones, oley limpet shells, virgineus fossil shell,
trade beads, turquoise and copper.

Thank you, Melek, and thank you for viewing. Please pay Melek’s Etsy shop a visit and buy everything. You may also follow her on Twitter: @venusplanet2010.