Scary. Coca-Cola can track you.

Last night the PBS station ran all the episodes of a really interesting series called ‘Sacred Balance.’ It reminded me a lot of ‘Cosmos,’ a show that really grabbed me way back when. But whereas ‘Cosmos’ was astronomical in scope, ‘Sacred Balance’ comes from the perspective of biology and systems theory.

The basic thing Dr. Suzuki’s trying to get across is that the more science you know, the more you begin to understand how all science overlaps, and when you begin to understand that, you start seeing that all of life really is one, and that all we really have is each other. And he does this from the perspective of science, not new-agey spiritual woo-woo.

Worth checking out if you’re interested in such things. I found myself thinking things like, “Yeah, Pacific northwest riparian zones get their nitrogen from dead salmon. AND? Oh yeah. Ignorant viewing public. Preach it Dr. Suzuki!” The episode on emergence was really interesting, with the example of an ant hill managing itself through both the instinctual nature of the ants, and an emergent ‘higher’ order (a whole ant society that can’t be accounted for by instinct) arising out of very simple inputs.

This sort of thing gets me thinking about what sort of complexity could result from the simple output of, say, my ‘blog, or simply walking down the block, or spending a dollar.

Economists can answer the question about the dollar; they’ve spend lifetimes trying to figure out how to map science onto spending patterns or valuation or what-have-you. A google search shows me that economists like to talk about the emergence of markets or technologies. For instance, Stone Age Economics: The Origins of Agriculture and the Emergence of Non-Food Specialists posits that the transition of human economy from hunter-gatherer to agriculture necessitated that there be people whose skills weren’t directly involved in creating food, leading to whole new areas of trade. However, I don’t see a lot of economists trying to predict what the next big emergent shift will be. I suppose it’s not profitable to guess. Neolithic economists probably wouldn’t have guessed that plants and agricultural implements would be the Next Big Thing.

Sitting here listening to Thomas Dolby. ‘One Of Our Submarines.’ Is missing. Tonight… Bye bye empire, empire, bye bye!

Back in the early days of high school, I thought that for sure I would be cool if I had a cool stereo. I honestly can’t remember if I saved for it, or if my parents just gave it to me. I guess that was a lesson well learned… But the point here is that I ended up with it.

It wasn’t exceedingly cool. It was kinda OK, and I listened to all the cool rock stations so I’d be all cool and stuff. Sitting there alone in my room trying to be cool. Such is the way of autism.

I had a tape deck so I could tape the radio. One of my first tapes had ‘One Of Our Submarines’ on it, along with ‘Welcome To The Machine’ and other joyful anthems of alienation and despair. The early 80s were like that. So when I hear ‘Submarines’ I’m transported back to a certain feeling I had at that time.

I remember walking through suburbia late at night. I’ve blogged about it before. I’d wander through the quiet streets, the strip centers, the parking garages at the local mall. All in the middle of the night, all alone.

When I hear ‘Submarines,’ I also think about the Toms, Tom C. and Tom C. Both their last names started with C, so that was the joke. The Toms and me and Robert H. I think about playing video games on the Atari 800 and basically having nothing to talk about. Thomas Dolby in the background.

By the time Dolby’s second album, ‘The Flat Earth,’ came out, I had it a little more together. I went down to Sound Warehouse and picked it up. I had heard that it came out on Reverend Huey’s show on KPFT. Reverend Huey was another very strange late night phenomenon, and I really regret that I never met the guy. Maybe my chance will come someday.

He played all the strange music I was into. His radio show was, I think, his equivalent to walking around the suburban streets in the middle of the night. It came on at like 11pm and ended at 4am. I’d sit in my room with the headphones on, halfway asleep, while he poured Tangerine Dream into my ears.

I always took my odd music for granted. Somehow I always assumed that everyone would hear, for instance, King Crimson’s ‘Frame By Frame’ and be blown away. Yeah, somewhere between Huey Lewis and the News and that guy who did the ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’ song, ‘Frame By Frame’ went over really big. Even the Pink Floyd fans would rush to the tape deck to find out if it was eating the tape. Never did I think I was hanging out with the wrong people; the fault was obviously with me.

I know the first time I was ever The Guy With The Cool Music. 2001. I was listening to ‘Flugufrelsarinn,’ by Sigur Ros in the basement of the house in Ballard. M and her friend Mitchell came down to the basement to pick a random movie to watch, and found me there with the CD going, and those lovely speakers that E left when she moved out. Truly, the cool stereo I had always hoped for. Plus 20 or so years and some other people aroud to hear.

‘Flugufrelsarinn’ is hard to describe (and pronounce). But suffice it to say it held them in a sort of rapture for a while. When it was over, we got into a discussion about music, and they ended up not watching a movie.

Finally. I had been cool. Now I could stop trying.

In light of recent news about the capacity for fraud inherent in many electronic voting systems, the music for today is:

‘Rigged‘ by my old friends from Houston, Joint Chiefs. The ‘King George’ in the lyrics is the previous President named George Bush. They also did a song called ‘Read My Lips You Suck’ that contained the lines: “1, 2, 3,4/Spin more Gulf War!”

Have I mentioned lately that I love Boards Of Canada? Well, I do. Currently listening to their ‘Dawn Chorus.’ They create an almost tangible atmosphere with every track. Some of the atmospheres are soothing and some are annoying and some are groovy and sexy. But they’re all crafted to be what they are.

Summer has ended, and though it’s still clear most days, the clouds are hanging low right now. They fill me with a certain kind of aprehension about what I’ll do with myself during the miserable winter.

Mr. (Dr?) C. gave me a link to an interesting article about ADD and ‘acquired autism.’ It’s an interesting hypothesis, but I’m too lazy to find out if anyone has proved or disproved the central point that humans create dopamine in their brain to deal with unstimulating situations. If it’s true, then I’m all for saying that ‘normal’ society is a bunch of dopamine addicts trying to sell their addiction to people like me.

Met with some folks yesterday. Web project maybe in the works. Stay tuned.

And last but not least, my dad:

Lately I’ve been feeling a strange detachment. I feel less and less like I’m part of the comings and goings of other people, and I have more in common with the breeze that blows between them, the sky that arches over their heads, and the earthworms crapping in their garden.

This isn’t a bad thing. It’s like people are little kids who can’t help that they’re ignorant. One can enjoy observing a child who’s approaching a new discovery with wonder. Right? What about a child who’s just learned that he or she can kill butterflies with trivial ease? Is that knowledge any less wonderful?

I’m looking at one of my favorite ‘blogs, and I see this entry about a Bush administration insider who has formed a consulting company to help other companies get lucrative contracts to help rebuild Iraq. Many of the major Iraq contracts were awarded without competitive bidding, and without price caps.

Just think about what that means for a second or two.

I should be outraged, by all accounts, but it’s just little kids crushing butterflies. They don’t know any better. How can they learn to respect the life around them? How can we, as adults, teach them?

Ok, so you know that book I was talking about? ‘Quicksilver?’ Well, it’s so huge that every time I think about reading it, I get kinda overwhelmed. Mostly because I know Stephenson will require me to actually concentrate and think a lot.

It’s funny. I’ll probably finish the thing before I’m 40.

Today’s music is brooding and moody, and begs the question: What is the oldest show in town?

‘Twisty Bass,’ by Neil Finn, from the ‘Try Whistling This’ album.

I haven’t had much of substance to say lately. I’ve moved away from trying to say anything interesting, and have ended up saying things that don’t have much bearing outside the scope of my black hole autist personality.

Speaking of which, maybe this will elevate and inspire:

A long while back I ‘blogged about the essence of my internal struggle, saying it was like a monkey riding a tortoise. The tortoise went where it pleased, while the frustrated monkey tried to get it to go somewhere else, ineffectually whacking the tortoise’s shell with a stick.

I’ve created a new image I’m working with now, one a little kinder to both character-nodes.

The little boy is autistic, in the sense that everybody thinks of when you say the word. He’s relatively high functioning, but still not good with words, easily startled or frustrated, and quite emotional otherwise.

The young man is a caregiver. He’s not sure if he’s reluctant about it or not. Maybe, since this is fiction, he’s the kid’s single dad. I don’t know. He’s not as clearly defined as the kid.

These two try not to be at odds, but they often are. They try to find common ground, as much as they can, and sometimes they do.

The kid just wants to sit around and play with things and think and sing and line things up in an orderly fashion. He really hates it when situations change, especially when it’s abrupt. This could be a bad change or a good one. All change is threatening.

The man sees all the possibilities but is anchored by the kid. He can’t go too far from home in case something happens. He has to give up part of his own emotional life for the stability of the little kid. He feels no duty toward the little kid. All the good he does for the kid ultimately comes from being trapped in this situation, and his own well being is tied to that of the kid. He’s trying to learn to be a friend to the kid, but just feels bitter.

And there you have it. The binary star that is my personality.

My mom sent me some old pictures of myself that she had. (I’d post some, but I fear the photoshopping contest consequences.) There’s one in particular that I like. It’s a school picture of me at age 10 or 11 or so, maybe as early as 8. I’m wearing a t-shirt that says ‘I Survived The Nantahala!’ The Nantahala is a river in North Carolina; the family had gone there for some canoeing. But the picture is framed such that it simply reads, ‘I Survived.’

And that’s the little autistic boy.

There’s another pair of pictures that I really like from this batch. One is just my dad. He must have been in his early 20s.

He’s wearing a light gray suit and a dark tie (the photo’s black and white). He has short cut hair and those black plastic glasses you’d find on nerdy men in the 50s.

The best part is the smirk. My dad’s actually smirking. The smirk is the crack in the Organization Man presentation.

The other notable factor: He looks like me. Or perhaps it’d be better to say I look like him. Not just a little bit.

Neal Stephenson’s new tome, ‘Quicksilver’ was finally released, and I finally picked up a copy.

It’s the first of three volumes, and it’s 927 pages. Consider somewhere around 3000 pages of novel… I’m hefting the book and committing to reading it feels a bit like being engaged to marry. Hopefully the children won’t have six toes.

It has an Acknowledgements section, and then an Invocation, which I think is beautiful:

State your intentions, Muse. I know you’re there.
Dead bards who pined for you have said
You’re bright as flame, but fickle as the air.
My pen and I, submerged in liquid shade,
Much dark can spread, on days and over reams
But without you, no radiance can shed.
Why rustle in the dark, when fledged with fire?
Craze the night with flails of light. Reave
Your turbid shroud. Bestow what I require.

But you’re not in the dark. I do believe
I swim, like squid, in clouds of my own make,
To you offensive. To us both, opaque.
What’s constituted so, only a pen
Can penetrate. I have one here; let’s go.

The book’s about the transition of science from alchemy to the scientific method. Seriously. It’s about the transformation of thought from superstition to reason. Things we take for granted as being taught in grade school were once the province of shadowy heretics, and somehow that changed.

The first chapter opens with a witch hanging in Boston, and ends with our main character meeting an 8-year-old Ben Franklin. The second chapter has a young Issac Newton being picked on by bullies in school.

Only 893 more pages to go. I’m jazzed.