Month: November 2003

Commercialism; it’s what makes the holidays so… Ick.

Now, before you read any further I’d like to let it be known that I’m not a huge fan of the common perception of holidays to begin with so the following might be a bit more scathing than anticipated.

What started my whole “HoliRant” today was while I was on the way back from the shop; I happened to have the radio on and hadn’t made it to the CD play button yet when a commercial came on (imagine that):

This commercial was an advertisement for holiday shopping at the big “Mills Mall” in Denver. They were sure to mention several times during the ten minute ad that the day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year. But what made the ad truly odd was when it ended with a hotel near the mall advertising special room rates for the sale…

Yes, the rooms at the Hilton near the Mills Mall in Denver are only $55 a night if you mention the radio ad and there is special bus service to and from the hotel…

Some other interesting points of this radio add was that they made a big deal out of the fact that one woman’s clothing store would be open at 6am Friday and another would be open at 5:45am. Several stores have special prizes for the first X customers and the mall in general will be open 24/7 till Monday.

Christ! It’s not even Thanksgiving yet and the Christmas “consume” programming is going on full force. I mean, you win a freaking PRIZE if you’re one of the first people in there on Friday and stores are having competitions to see who opens first…

And people wonder why our civilization is self-destructing.

This of course all leads into the common misconception of “Christmas” in general. Xmas is about as religious these days as Easter…

Speaking of which, can someone please tell me what a freaking bunny rabbit and painted eggs has to do with the puppetry of Emmanuel rising from the dead on the third day? C’mon here, are people really this stupid? The bunny and eggs come from the Teutonic lunar Goddess Eostre and the holiday is for the pagan vernal equinox celebration, Oestara which is held on the Vernal Equinox Full Moon. Of course, the Church doesn’t celebrate full moons, even if they do calculate by them, so they planted their Easter on the following Sunday. Thus, Easter is always the first Sunday, after the first Full Moon, after the Vernal Equinox.

If you’ve ever wondered why Easter moved all around the calendar, now you know. (By the way, the Catholic Church was so adamant about NOT incorporating lunar Goddess symbolism that they added a further calculation: if Easter Sunday were to fall on the Full Moon itself, then Easter was postponed to the following Sunday instead.)

So back to Xmas; which is about far more than buying stuff and cutting down a perfectly good pine tree…

Xmas is another of those pagan holidays that was usurped by the Church. Rather than outlawing Yule, they just changed it’s meanings a bit and got everyone singing their tune eventually… Remember, the Church was staffed by people who came up with the term, “If we can’t beat them out, we’ll breed them out.”…

Yule, for those of you who don’t know (yes, you two over there in the corner), is associated with Nordic divination, Celtic fertility rites, and Roman Mithraism which is why both Martin Luther and John Calvin abhorred it, why the Puritans refused to acknowledge it, much less celebrate it, and why it was even made illegal in Boston for a while. But further back in time, Yule was a pretty big thing:

In 529, it was a civic holiday, and all work or public business (except that of cooks, bakers, or any that contributed to the delight of the holiday) was prohibited by the Emperor Justinian. In 563, the Council of Braga forbade fasting on Christmas Day, and four years later the Council of Tours proclaimed the twelve days from December 25 to Epiphany as a sacred and festive season. This last point is perhaps the hardest to impress upon the modern person who is lucky to get a single day off work. Christmas in the Middle Ages was not a single day but rather a period of twelve days from December 25 to January 6. Ever hear of the “Twelve Days of Christmas”? It is certainly lamentable that the modern world has abandoned this approach along with my favorite, the Twelfth Night celebration. Thanks be to the SCA who still ensure this wonderful celebration continues to this day.

At any rate pagan customs are still enthusiastically followed. Once, the Yule log had been the center of the celebration. It was lit on the eve of the solstice and must be kept burning for twelve hours for good luck. It used to be made of ash but later the Yule log was replaced by the Yule tree and instead of burning it, burning candles were placed on it. In Christianity, Protestants might claim that Martin Luther invented the custom, and Catholics might grant St. Boniface the honor, but the custom can demonstrably be traced back through the Roman Saturnalia all the way to ancient Egypt. Needless to say, such a tree should be cut down rather than purchased, and should be disposed of by burning, the proper way to dispatch any sacred object.

Above all the holiday is a festive occasion to celebrate the turning of the wheel of time and to remember, in happiness and amongst friends, those who have traveled it with you and those who have moved on. In a more religious vain it is the birthday of the new Sun King, the Son of God – by whatever name you choose to call him and on this darkest of nights, the Goddess or Mary – again your choice, becomes the Great Mother and once again gives birth and in doing so, gives us another year to do what we will.

It all makes perfect poetic sense; that on the longest night of the winter, “the dark night of our souls”, there springs the new spark of hope, the Sacred Fire, the Light of the World and that we all travel onward.

So, don’t get caught up in the commercialism of the season. There is no need to sweat the details of what gifts you’ll buy for which person.

Your gift could simply be remembering them in a kind light; a memory of fun and happy times and the retelling of it around the dinner table. For after all, isn’t that what makes us who we are? We are judged solely in the memories of others; all of our great acts and dismal failures are just another spot of paint on the canvas for others to see.

Looking at it that way; just spending some time laughing with your friends or relatives over dinner will mean far more than a pair of socks or a new kitchen gizmo ever could.

With the best of wishes for this holiday season, to all those I know, will know, or have known. I remember you all fondly,

Bill..

Ok, you know how I’m an avid fan of Yes; you know, that band with all those deep meanings and whatnot that very few people actually get. Well, now you can take “Yesology” in college and learn about all things Yesian.

http://www.csi.edu/ip/ce/yesology/

Of course this isn’t a credit bearing course (yet), and it’s at a community college, but I still think it’s cool that the band gets this kind of recognition… You don’t see “Rolling Stoneology” offered anywhere. 😉

Kind of reminds me of the old “Bill and Ted” movies; wherein a band becomes a method for living that unites the world in peace. Well, I can’t think of anyone better than Jon Anderson to play the part… Of course they’ll have to hire Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull too just because he’s so worldly and grounded compared to Jon’s ethereal and dimensional.

Speaking of Yes, there will be a 3 hour DVD set coming out here in the US on Feb. 3 that promises to be quite good. It’s not your usual “concert footage” affair, but is instead more of a documentary of the band over the last 35 years.

Aryntha and Rai headed back down last night to avoid what has become a full blown blizzard up here. The road out in front of the house comes and goes and there are times one feels like the entire house has been removed from the fabric of reality. (Wouldn’t that be cool?)

So with the weather, and Jack’s knee being messed up, it has been decided that we won’t start working on the new store till Wednesday. So here I sit in front of the fireplace, laptop fired up and a continual loop of one of the 40+ gigs of MP3s I have running in the background. I finally got around to making that big pot of chili today and the whole house smells very “winter” as the slow cooker does its job in the kitchen.

When I make chili, it’s an all day event as I take it very seriously: Cubed steak and some kielbasa for the meat, a few diced potatoes for the base, onions, three kinds of beans, and my own mix of seasonings, and the secret ingredient; a little bacon!… It is mighty.

I’ll add this mixture, when done, to a bowl full of “freetos” which is a little something Wolf showed me the other day. She calls it a “Straw Hat”… I call it delicious. 😉

Other than that it’s a writing day. I plan to get two or three chapters done before going and playing around with “Second Life” http://secondlife.com/ which is a little thing Aryntha and Rai showed me the other day that has some promise. Basically it’s a huge multi-user 3D world where *everything* has been handed to the players. No rules, nothing… You have to build everything (and anything) with a built-in modeling system and scripting language. Basically it’s the player’s world right down to the nuts and bolts.

If they can keep the trolls out, Second Life promises to be the next big “muck / mud” out there… Right now you have the usual dearth of freak-shows online, but they (the managers) are pruning them as fast as they can. You know the ones; they exist purely to fuck with the system and the normal folks online. Imagine how nice the world would be if people in general didn’t suck.

Aha, it looks like the sun is coming out. Once neat thing about living in the mountains is if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute, it’ll change.

Got to run…

Well, Larry and Vivian are off again and once again I’m alone here in the solitude of Château D’Isaster.

We had a good long meeting in regards to the store and have ironed out everyone’s marching orders. I’ve also been given my art assignments for the next consulting job which should be pretty easy this time around… It’s a simple schematical breakdown of a power conversion system used to accelerate a 40,000 pound object to 200mph in 350 feet. Whee!

I just *love* linear motors.

Aryntha and Rai are on their way here to spend a few hours up here in the snow and thin air. I don’t think we’re going to do anything earth-shaking, but one never knows.

I think I’ll sign off and start a pot of chili…

This is just a quick update for today.

Larry and Vivian made it back last night and will be leaving again this evening after dropping off my art “to do” list for the next project.

I finally got a web page up and running. For the curious; http://home.comcast.net/~rihahn/
(Includes a nice embarrassing picture of the perky-goth.)

Comcast is a little slow as it’s the warez web server of choice right now and all their bandwidth is used up by 13 year olds getting the latest leaked version of “Half-Life 2”.

Well, I have to get going. Larry and I are going over store plans this morning and we’ve only got a short while to do it.

Well, here I am down in Denver at Lyon and Wolf’s place. They came up to Château D’Isaster Tuesday night and then kidnapped me Wednesday afternoon and brought me down to “the big city”… They’re off at work so I’m doing what I can to help out and am cleaning the kitchen.

See, Wolf is almost a professional cook and as such she makes some positively delicious meals. The down side to all this wonderful feasting is the clean up afterwards, which so far has resulted in two loads in the dishwasher and about a half an hour of counter scrubbing and stove cleaning. Well, I had to do some minor repairs on the dishwasher too, but I’ve always been a fixit kind of person…

It’s no problem to do it really. I’d be doing about the same thing up in Avon and I feel it’s only right if I get to eat the good food, I should help clean up afterwards. Right?

So, with all of that out of the way, I have some time to sit and ponder the world. Right now I have “Dusty” the 24 year old Siamese sitting net to me, “Naga Neen” is perched next to my head on the back of the sofa-chair, and “Raya” the Greyhound (she’s really an ROV for a Chihuahua, but don’t tell her that) is snoozing at my feet. The only pets unaccounted for are Kaitlin’s rat and “Ashley – the brain dead kitty” who is another house cat… It’s going to take weeks to get all the pet hair out of my laptop. (chuckle)

Well, that and the only thing keeping me breathing is the allergy pill Lyon gave me this morning. See, I’m allergic to cats and the house here is full of them. I like cats well enough; I just find it hard to breathe around them. I got up this morning feeling like I had a hairball and my eyes were swelling shut… Yay fexofenadine. Dunno what it is, but it sure works.

Some of you might be wondering about the wisdom of taking an unknown pill for something. Well, wonder not; Lyon is a working physician’s assistant for Kaiser and is currently working on his LPN (licensed practical nurse), so I feel I can trust his judgment on medications… He’s been giving people drugs for years now. 😉

Well, the dishwasher just stopped, so I suppose I should go unload it then head for the shower.

Later…

Well, the Wachowski brothers have re-earned my respect after the horror that was Matrix:2.

I just got back from M:3 and it is a much better movie than 2. No gratuitous rave scenes, no pointlessly long sex scenes, and no deliberately confusing plot development here; just lots of butt-kicking, supreme special effects, awe-inspiring wire-fu, and the conclusion (?) to the story.

If you’re the one person in America who hasn’t seen M:3 yet, unglue yourself from the couch and go see it. 😉

In other news; THE MOVE IS OVER! (Confetti and balloons fall from the ceiling)

Yes, it’s official, we’ve finished the “move from hell” and I’ll be taking a much needed 2-3 days off before starting the rebuild process. I’m celebrating right now as a matter of fact, even as I type; the healing powers of 10 year old “Old Speyburn” scotch are quite amazing. If you combine the single malt with 802.11, an IBM T21, the snow outside, and the big fireplace in the living room, you get a pretty good idea of my evening tonight.

(Contented sigh)

Pity the thermostat in the hot tub has gone south. I suppose I’ll fix that tomorrow as I could definitely use a good long session in the Cannibal Special after the trials of the past two weeks.

Now for some philosophy:

I got a call from Aryntha this evening: Apparently it’s a crime against humanity to take pictures of a lunar eclipse these days as he was hassled last night by the bone-headed “perfect hair” types across the street for doing just that.

Be careful out there dear readers, the world isn’t looking too fondly on those who do anything different from the prescribed “norm” these days. Dressing different will prevent you from getting a job, looking different will get you cornered by thugs, and the ultimate sin, thinking different, can land you in jail or worse… Just be careful out there.

It all reminds me very much of the 40’s and 50’s: When the Cleaver looking letter jacket clones would seek out “greasers” to beat the hell out of. Here in the 00’s we have losers in daddy’s ’04 BMW hassling anyone who doesn’t drive a car made this year or wear the latest in designer clothing.

I suppose it’s just human nature: What a human does not understand, they fear, and that which they fear, they destroy. So as the little valleys between human archetypes widen into un-crossable chasms, I think we’ll see these incidents increase.

The guys across the street cannot fathom Aryntha’s desire to photograph a celestial event any more that Aryntha can fathom their desire to do nothing but watch football and drink beer… The difference is that Aryntha’s human archetype is far less aggressive than theirs and he doesn’t need to understand nor feel threatened by their differences.

Unfortunately, as human history shows, to the aggressor go the spoils.

As the war-like CroMagnon man killed off the peaceful Neanderthal man, will the same happen to us? I hope not. We still have a corner on the intelligence market. Let’s hope smarts beats brawn here in the 21st century.

I’ve been *very* busy with the move of the store and as such have been ignoring both my in-box and the journal here. With this move I’ve discovered whole sections of my body that I didn’t even know existed, let alone could hurt… Want to do something big? Try moving a 2700 pound safe some time.

Anyways, I’ll attempt to remedy this communication oversight this evening. Stay tuned for a flood of overdue emails dear readers.

So, on to the latest news and views:

• Tonight is a big event cosmologically with the total lunar eclipse *and* a pretty decent planetary alignment happening at the same time. Wolf was kind enough to remind me of this (I’ve been so busy I’m forgetting a lot) and I’ll post some links for others who might be interested:
http://www.harmonicconcordance.com/
http://www.crystalinks.com/harmoniconcord.html
http://www.healingsounds.com/worldday/project_om.asp

• I’ve discovered that “big iron” computers can save your life. No, really. Winter has finally come to the high country and so the roads have become icy in the evenings. Well, to make a long story short, I had my ALR 6×6 fileserver in the trunk of the Lincoln along with its external drive cages in the back seat and that extra weight allowed me to steer out of a pretty bad spin to avoid another car that was out of control. Let’s hear it for computers so heavy they have casters!

• I’ve finally gotten to see the entire series for “Taken”… Went out and bought the 6 DVD set 4-5 days ago. It’s pretty good; if you haven’t seen it, do so.

Well, that’s about it for news. Like I mentioned above, I’ve been lifting and hauling for the last week and a half and have simply been too pooped to do much more than stare at the TV of an evening. Fortunately tomorrow should be the final move day where I pack out the last of the trash and turn the keys over to the land-lady. Once that is done I’m taking a week off before we start building the new store. Hopefully we’ll be open for business December 1st!

Take it easy out there in ‘net land…

Just got back from seeing “Brother Bear”, and it’s just as good as I had hoped. The only thing I think that might stop this movie from getting the acclaim it deserves is the fact that *none* of the children in the theater “got it”, and I’d be surprised if more than a dozen parents, or critics, figure it out also.

It has a lot of action, suspense, and laughs, which I figure are for the rubes, but it also contains a lot of subtlety which is really neat in my opinion. Much like “The Last Unicorn”, which kids love and parents like, but intellectuals watch over and over again just for the layers and layers of intertwined meanings. Sort of a cartoon version of “Finnegan’s Wake” I guess.

Anyways, “Brother Bear” is a pretty deep movie for being a G-rated kid’s flick. Which is fine by me as I’m a real fan of animation in general and if it has a story that makes me smile while others are scratching their heads or telling their children “no, he’s not God” (you’ll understand if you see it), I like it even more… Seriously, the mother of the family next to me was really telling her kids that. I’d have to assume at this point that Disney Studios just loves to push the fine line of Right Winger “heresy”. 😉

One thing I noticed immediately is how the saturation of the colors got ratcheted up right after Kenai’s transformation from man to bear. They also beefed up the ambient sounds, which is most likely designed to emphasize the differences in Kenai’s perceptions as the story progresses.

I also just loved the tribe’s Wise Woman who reminds me a lot of Wolf. The whole sequence where she is talking to Kenai while completely unperturbed as to the fact that he is now a bear is priceless in my opinion.

“Rutt” and “Tuke”, the two moose voiced as Bob and Doug McKenzie, are also a real hoot for anyone old enough to remember SCTV. It’s tough to animate most ungulates like horses, deer and even moose due to the lack of “squash and stretch” in them, but Disney pulled it off. Wait till you see “Moose Yoga”, ROFL!

Anyways, go see this movie and if you must, simply enjoy it for the wonderful art that it is. Otherwise, revel in the meaning behind the story and I guarantee you’ll leave the theater with the biggest smile you’ve had in weeks.