Scrooge’s greatness is hardly ever appreciated. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone appreciate Scrooge, ever. Of course we all appreciate him after he’s been scared straight, so to speak. I’m talking about appreciating him before that, when he’s bah humbugging things. I don’t mean appreciate him according to some generic standard which holds that everyone…
Category: Myth
Hamlet, the Old Lady, and the Fly
I’m tempted to say that the tricky thing about changing your life is the feedback between our circumstances, our social situations, and our psychic states. This complexity is multiplied by the fact that we may do ourselves more harm than good. Physician induced disease is a real thing, on every level. We see it in…
What, Then, is America Good For?
The Coming Dystopia and the Promise of Andrew Yang I’m just going to put this out there: I deserve a media company. I know, I know, we are living in an Age of Entitlement, with everyone arguing about who deserves what as a consequence of their general humanity or their specific identity. Plus, I have…
Seth Rich Must Die
Operation Gaslight Triumphant Operation Gaslight has been successful in at least establishing the appearance of a dominant narrative, according to which the fundamental problem with the Democratic party in 2016 was not that they ran a sham of a primary, intent from long before it began on handing Clinton the nomination, and used that nomination…
The Utopian Part of Utopianism
I am stuck now that that oft-quoted summary of Marxist utopianism – From each according to his gifts, to each according to his needs – (gendered language aside) contains within it the most utopian of all ideas. An idea so utopian as to be absent from lesser versions of that ultimate ideal. In fact, dystopias…
The GOD Problem
The problem with confronting ideological delusions is that for whatever these delusions get wrong, however maladaptive they are, they are performing a deeper function of keeping existential anxiety at bay. In short, all practical ends, all external problems, are secondary to the true purpose of ideology, which is psychological comfort. What’s worse, as all practical…
The Talking Cure
Verily Self-explanation is a bid for immortality, or at least, perpetuation in the moment. We know ourselves to be limited, and incapable of self-perpetuation, at least relative to the cycles of generation. We live within the box of our own mortality, with the strange awareness – usually dim, or blindingly bright, but seen through layers…
Museophile
To paraphrase Rumi, who would be a lover cannot have but a single head. This, because loving well requires one to lose one’s head; and considering this, we might draw an analogy between the lover and the transmigratory soul. Whatever we do, we will lose our heads in the end. Or, as John Hiatt put…
The Age of Universal Deceit
I’ve been preparing, in my usual willy-nilly and summary fashion, for what will be the first High Horseman of the Apocalypse podcast, scheduled to be recorded early this afternoon. The topic of this first podcast, I’ve decided, will be The Age of Universal Deceit. This phrase entered into my lexicon at some point in the…
We Say YES
Joseph Campbell used to tell a story, about how he had met some famous Yogi, a Guru, in India, when he was a young man. He got an audience with the Guru, and as is customary, arrived with the deepest question brought to him by exposure to the Vedic tradition. If, Campbell asked, all of…
It’s All in the Crawl
I watched BLADE RUNNER 2049 this past weekend, and knew from the opening crawl that it was going to be a travesty relative to the original. To explain why, here’s a point-by-point comparison of the 2049 crawl with the original. BLADE RUNNER Early in the 21st century, the Tyrell corporation advanced Robot evolution into the…
Alchemical Dreaming
Dreamed last night that I was in what we might reasonably call a wonderful relationship, but the whole time I had this feeling that something was wrong with it. It wasn’t till the end that I realized that the thing wrong was that I was asleep. It was one of those rare instances where I…
New Year’s Message
I’ve been struck this morning by apparently earnest statements online about surviving 2017, as if it were an entity with a particular quality that those of us still living have escaped. In the Age of Trump, this poetic conceit takes on a great deal more solidity for many. In part, I just want to scream,…
Doctor My Eyes
Spiritual beings are friends of last resort. By ‘last resort’ I mean the situation Jackson Browne described in these lines: Look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through Looking into their eyes I see them running too While we’re on the subject, the “Doctor” in DOCTOR MY EYES…
The Essence of the Counting Crows
So, here’s the essence of the Counting Crows – which only matters because the Counting Crows exemplified the essence of an historical moment. More, even, than an historical moment, the essence of the Counting Crows exists as a sort of standing wave. It is a hypostasis of the human psyche. 🙂 By that, I just…
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
Lots of people blame the Russians, misogyny, James Comey, Bernie Sanders, and Jill Stein. Apparently, this is all God’s fault. There’s one particularly interesting part in this generally horrifying video. One part that’s interesting in an unusual way. Most of it’s interesting in a “holy fuck but American evangelicals are crazy” way. At one point,…
So Here’s What I Think
an ongoing series by Yours T Ruly Movies are going to shit because they are more beholden than ever to an official morality. Every story, for reason of some abominable fusion of ethics and capitalism, must illustrate the superiority of this morality. It reminds me of a line from Roger Water’s song, It’s a Miracle:…
This Thursday’s Prophecy #1: There’s Always a Baby; There’s Always Bathwater
When I first started Highhorseman of the Apocalypse [now widely ignored as the Internet’s Finest Unread Blog], somewhere short of two years back, I thought of the name in large part as a bit of self-deprecating humor. It was a sardonic embrace of what we might call – in the verbiage of yesteryear – my…
The Centre Will Not Hold
“So essentially what we can get out of this is we butchered our plan to sort of have a response for the national anthem and respect everyone’s opinions.” -Alejandro Vllanueava I’m sharing this as evidence in support of the proposition that “the center will not hold.” This proposition is taken from the start of Yeat’s…
Make Music, Not War
Had a great time playing outside 16 Tons last night with Zac. It is such a pleasure to play with a soloist, especially an exceptionally skilled and musical one, because it allows me to switch between leading and supporting, and in so doing to enter more fully into the experience of the music and the…
The Meaning of Money
Our world is such that the meaning of money is extremely hard to pin down. Perhaps it is elusive in the best of times, but at present it’s bewildering to the heart and mind, and stomach. In particular, I’m thinking about kickstarter and patreon, drawn to the contemplation by my struggles as an artist. I’ve…
Another Brick in the Wall
I am driven to wonder how much of this whole issue of The Wall is even real. As far as Trump is concerned, it was just a rhetorical device, red meat for the crowds… and Mexico is gonna pay for it! It was, in short, a con job from the start – only a fraction…
Shades of Blue and Gray
Here’s an interesting article on the tangled family history of slave and slaveholder, which nonetheless veers into a sort of certainty that I find historically and rationally untenable: The president has asked, “Where will it end?” Will the removal of General Lees lead to upheaval for Thomas Jefferson? Trigger the end for George Washington? I…
Socialism’s Shadow
Given a choice between Hitler and Stalin, I choose FDR. Moral crusades tend to grow inherently unscientific; even those nominally based on a rejection of religion. This, because the ethical usage of words supersedes the technical or literal usage. This confusion of ethical and literal further demands that the literal be erased. This is what…
The Literary Life #1
(fascinating reflections on a life spent reflecting) Having a new appreciation for the phrase: damned if you do, damned if you don’t, as regards our current political climate, which in turn serves as an instance of the beginning and end of human civilization. In short, I am convinced by the traditional view of the human…
From Narcissus to the Heroic State
So here’s a funny thing: The mantra of our age, the sentiment that is both liberational creed and the essential marketing sentiment for every product, is some version of “be yourself”. Hence our culture’s secret admiration of the Narcissistic Psychopath. That Dude is Killing It. But how do you know if the self your being…
The Revolt Against Beauty
I’ve saved lots of images I’ll never look at again, but there’s one I didn’t save that I wish I had. This image was a photograph of graffiti spray-painted onto the wall of some crumbling and dilapidated building. The reason I wish I’d saved it is so I could recall the exact wording, which not…
Pulling a Bannon
Well, it’s August again. Which means I’m starting on another album. Truth is, I have what seems to me a great wealth of creative inspirations, and a corresponding dearth of financial resources. It is, as with most things, a chicken and egg problem. And I think it was Chris Chandler who finally cracked the case:…
Candid thoughts between you, me, and the world’s intelligence services #1
The Bitter Pill #6 Hard-headed woman/Ghost in the Shell You may know me as that guy who writes bitchy letters to editors of Eugene’s Weekly and Register Guard. From this, you may have gathered that I’m a frustrated artist. If so, I commend you on your perceptiveness, and thank you for taking the time to…
I Think Bob Dylan Was With Hydra
To my mind, this is a perfect love song. Couldn’t find Dylan’s original, so Jeff Buckley will have to suffice. There are a million covers, but I believe Buckley knew the heart of it. This is the sort of love song that’s quite seemly in a young man, though it ages strangely, as perhaps we…
FILM SCHOOL AND A HEALTHY DOSE OF IDIOCY
WARNING: Title might not accurately indicate content. I’m rewatching The Matrix, for laughs. Best one so far: Humans scorched the sky because the machines were dependent on solar energy. This takes destroying the village to save it to another level, and then again to the level above that. It’s not only destroying the village you…
The Perils of Illuminism
Back in the days of Socrates, in the mind of Socrates, their lived what we might call a keen but highly dangerous and unpopular idea that people weren’t fit to govern themselves. More, and it seems strange, this lack of fitness relative to self-government was exactly paralleled by a mysterious prohibition Socrates had picked up…
Wound Consciousness and the Flower of Enlightenment
I am approaching an idea about wound/wounded consciousness. In part, the dampening of awareness that serves as an anesthetic brings as a corresponding cost a loss of those cognitive skills that have the potential to transform, and even transmute, the experience. Reducing something to a dull ache numbs the pain, but at a cost of…
Man Walks in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. You’ll never guess what happens next.
You know how it is with us humans, always seeking after some answer, some new tool or toy. Behind it all, as the gurus tell us, is a feeling of insufficiency. The appropriate response to this information has become almost self-evident; and when you hear that phrase it helps to remember how far Thomas Jefferson’s…
Bush, Hamlet, and the Age of Aquarius
An observation that’s been a long time coming: Real life is subtle. Real people are subtle. Real history is subtle. And so, from this we might conclude that Real Politics is subtle. Political narratives, on the other hand, are simplistic. They are stories. They are myths. As such, they are easily recognized as fiction by…
Disinterested Survivor
Dreamed I was on a Survivor-type dating show, except we were all dressed as Vedic deities. I was Hanuman. A few of the people were discussing the nature of disinterested action, and coming upon them I declared (authoritatively, as you might imagine) that the essence of disinterested action lay in not trying to be disinterested….
Restless Venus: Lyrics and Notes
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/292619138″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] Here are the lyrics, with a few annotations (signified by ^, ^^ and ^^^) to dress them up a bit: [chorus] Restless Venus won’t you please settle down and just try staying with me in this town It’s hard to love you when you’re wandering around O, my…
Meru to Mordor: A Poetic Consideration of the Deep State
We stand before You, Great Mountain of the State – who breaks the clouds and causes rain to fall – wondering whether to call you Meru or Mordor, Olympus* or Doom Regarding Olympus, it is worth remembering that supposedly Greek innovation, whereby the divine beings were made more like humans, with the passions of individual…
Music and Magic
To tell the truth, I am working on a political post, but posting a favorite song may yet head me off at the pass. So here it is: a song that features a lot of chorus/tremolo synced with the beat. This may seem a superficial detail, but I think it’s part of the magic of the…
Hungry Ghosts and the Real Meaning of Halloween
While considering a friend’s avoidance of trick or treaters I was struck by the essence of Halloween, which has been lost, though the form lives on. It used to be if you didn’t show up at the door with offerings the kids would vandalize your house, but we’re living in a soft age, with no real…
An Opening and Closing Comment on the Perfect Horror of it All
I can think of no more succinct statement of the ethical bankruptcy of the American political process than the fact that regardless of which major party candidate is declared winner of this election, come January 2017 a man accused of multiple sexual assaults will be living in the White House. Supporters of Hillary who object…