To the craftsman I say ...

To the craftsman I say you have done yourself proud

Chiselled the truth from this icy shroud

Taken the myth that be the devil’s dowry

And made it into God’s work entirely

What of her soul oh master of the arts?

Why has her mind not be given good start?

Her lips move wonderfully to some tune I hear not

Her eyes betray an indifference to my lot

Her skin is like snow, but acts as if Ice

I would not meet her in battle twice

Bled and broken by silence not sound

Defeated not by hatred but love never found

So to the craftsman I say well done, good cheer and all

Created perfection that shall always stand tall

Not meant for me alas, this part of heaven

I will meet thee in hell, and there get even

Dedicated to, well, her….

When I was a little boy ..

... barely 10 years old, there was a boy in my class. Let us call him Henry. He struggled with personal relationships and communication. Though I have no cause to believe, now as an adult, that he was handicapped in any way, at that time we all mocked him for his inability to express himself properly and thought him special. 

One of the many, many days of teasing and taunting, I saw Henry exit the school and walk towards his mother, his head slumped. We, the collective cruelty that only children are capable of, had made fun of him, jeered at him and had singled him out for scorn in a class of 25. 

His mother, a relatively young lady, looked for him in the crowd of tired kids. She found him and her frozen smile unclenched in a show of wide teeth and admiration; something she had practised unconsciously no doubt many times. Henry struggled with life and we all should have known that this made a tense, charged time at home for the parents. We did not care. Children don't really care much for the plight of adults; not in those lands. 

As soon as they made eye contact, I saw her whole figure fall onto itself. Like weight that has no where to go but down, the ease of her moment had been broken by the chore of reconciliation. She had the task of reconciling, for her son whom she no doubt loved more than life itself, each day and today was one of the worst days her son had lived through... It was hard, relentless, crushing work. It broke her heart a little, day by day. 

On an evening like this, it probably broke her heart a lot. 

I saw her ask him what the matter was, saw her resignation and hurt when he wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't have had to explain. 

I will never forget that moment. I use it to ease myself into the Zen like moments I treat myself to when I am surrounded by a darkness imaginary and when the only sounds I hear are the murmurs of insanity. 

It serves me, and hopefully my entire class of 24, right to live through waking life like this after having displayed such abject inhumanity. 

Henry, where ever you are, I know you were better and smarter than me and I thank you for it. I hope your mother's heart is aching less now that you have undoubtedly made her proud.. 

Dedicated to L'Ecole St Honore D'Eylau, 

La 18eme 

Paris

Trial by combat

"I leave my fate in the hands of the gods... I demand a trial by combat!!"

You have pitted me against the ancient sermon,
Asked me to suffer what no man has done before
I must have surely been chosen at random,
For never had I asked to do this miserable chore

To walk with blisters under my feet
Under burning sun with skin dripping blood
To get no rest under these thorned sheet
I see no shelter to save me from this flood

Why was I not given a better weapon?
Not provided horse and ample saddle
Why are my wares so pitiful and wanton?
When even the wicked get a hoe and paddle

Here I am now, again, a muse of your court
Where monkeys preside to seal the fate of men
False kings watch me become common sport
Waiting to throw me in a deep putrid den

So I say stop this mockery and let me be
I have scars deep in the chambers of my heart
You are no messiah, nor any deity
You have not seen my life from its start

I leave my fate in the hands of the gods
And let them decide if I be man or rat
Cease these proceedings of uneven odds
I now demand a trial by combat

dedicated to the Mother of Dragons

A boy awakes into a nightmare

To the serpent he said bite me, poison away the death

The boy awoke into his nightmare, surprised and lost
He bargained on being brave and stand his ground
His blood became curdled into a miserable frost

To the serpent he said bite me, poison away the death
Maybe the ground will give lightly to my false steps
I can sense the end as I sing from this depth

He began to do a wizardly dance, macabre and sincere
Tuned to the wind howling and a wolf cub's lament
Staring the end with open eyes and brows severe

"Can you not forgive me my sins oh woeful temptress?"
I have angels hidden within and a will to do good
It is a shallow notion the sense of justice in duress

His resolved weakened when he saw his reflection so true
Within the serpent's eyes his entirety laid bare
How awful those deeds that this dreamer could not argue

Whimpering and crying his cheeks show muddied purpose
Water is acid and rain with shards of pain he feels
Long gone now the serpent from this dark dusty circus

He is alone in space, with no stars or moons to forget the hell
This is no dream, nor nightmare, this is waking life of the damned
He misses the sense of touch and comfort he had in his shell

The boy has walked in the deep too long, looking not back
This is his penance for forgetting promises made to beauty
At the cathedral of heaven, no, hell, maidens now in black

Looking intently at this nothingness of man or now as beast
His doom is knowing that he is no more an object
Not of the Earth, not of the pit below lies his rest

This sobbing creature will now fester in between somewhere
Robbed of his sanity he will shrivel within his own recess
And whisper when he can, parched tongue, of his care

Nothing will listen, no echoes will be met in this distant prison
Where no windows exist to soothe the dying soul
Only memories to keep and screams in purgatory not forbidden

Dedicated to no one .. not tonight. 

...and hair like black river

Oh lord if I were to walk the gardens of heaven
Where awaits my eternal bride
Cast in the image of goddess imagined
An angel created to be by my side

So I can gaze at your finest offspring
And let my soul swim in her eyes
An amber chisel and hair like black river
My words replaced by sighs

Beauty so pure it is looking past me
A hole burning right to very shadow
There must be tears on my cheek
I am in the peace of a mind hollow

Perched on the highest peak in heaven
My altar of truth is your angels smile
I worship the Norse queen before me
Watching the mist of eternity untwine

Mad Men: the long one (insomnia breeds pointless blog posts)

Megan Draper...Sigh....Course he's happy she's Canadian

So I was watching the season premiere of ‘Mad Men’ (season 5, yeah am pretty behind) and something struck me; the characters have a lot more to offer than we've been led to believe. What’s more, there is a certain emotional depth, cleverness and sense of life about them. It was (is, am still watching it, I took a break to write this) the most enjoyable episode of the series I’ve seen yet.

Let me put things in context. Mad Men is a very stylized show: it has a strong sense of its time and place in history, ours and the time it represents. It is a period piece. The dilemmas and twists of Draper’s life, the ups and downs of the ad world, the personal arcs of those around him are all written to create an impression. Call it the imprint of that era, the usual story with the grace of the 50s and 60s. It is fairly well scripted and has some great acting.

The average episode runs for about an hour. This one was a special 1 hour 30 minutes. That’s 32 odd minutes more air time. 32 minutes changes a lot. Don’s world seems different. Ok so he’s married (again) and happy. That’s not it though; the show has life in it. Real life. The script is sharper than its ever been, the quips better executed. Nuances are more deliberate. Given the luxury of added time we see an almost ‘cinematic’ display of the storyboard.

The third bit of context is my own circumstances. I am tired, I have been awake all night and that means I am more vulnerable than usual. I feel more. It helps to see Don with Megan, she’s not only gorgeous, she’s from Montreal. My city. I ache for such a beauty, feel happy to share in the tidings at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. No one’s seems hurried, nothing is done in a snappy manner. Things move at a nice, elegant pace; creating depth of mis-en-scene.

The point of this post is a simple one: everything captured on film which is really good has the potential to be great. Sopranos great. Given time and artistic freedom television productions can evolve to tell great stories of legendary characters.

Time is everything. It leaves space for humanity and expression. We see it in this episode. Craft is always amplified to fill the gaps it is asked to fill. In the cultural space of the digital world, less is only more when it actually has more. Placing, or trying to place, too much content in a small segment of this space is not the end-game. Creating lasting impressions is.

In other words; Just watching 1.5 hour special Mad Med S5; brilliant. Feels like Don’s world has a deeper sense of life in it. (yes, I did just tweet that last line, with 22 characters to spare - somehow the post was a better read).

Anyway, I shall now finish the episode.   

Whispers of the Ghost Part 2: The neural Network, Net

The 'Neural Net' will be the platform of the future

Since 2009, I have seen and digested the entire Ghost In the Shell (GITS) offering; the 3 movies and the 40 odd episodes that make up the 2 series. Nothing has changed, one tattoo and one massive life transition later, I find myself wondering why so few people share my secret: almost everything around us, not just technology but society at large, can be extrapolated from this ‘animated essay’.

Here are a few of the essential concepts from GITS that I have used to know what the future (and the evolving present) holds:

1. The neural network - the Net

Neural pathways and the network of knowledge we create from birth to death are a mystery. We have yet to understand what consciousness is.

This does not prevent us from being able to model knowledge and create silicon based networks (graphene and plastic even) that mimic real life social interaction. My definition of a neural network is a self-aware and dynamic network of information and memory.

In GITS, the human mind is 90% cyberized. If you find this disturbing, consider the extent to which your essential brain functions are either used up by or being ‘transmitted’ onto a computer based platform. The knowledge worker responds to a digital terminal for the majority of his/her work. He adds to this digital repository and derives his/her livelihood from it. We communicate, therefore we live. The machine we hold in our hands or nest in our laps is eventually going to make its way directly in our brains; it is only logical that this be so.

In this transition lies an important variable: the Interface (an area I intend to cover in a separate document). The touch screen, the keyboard, the voice app are all interfaces. They feel highly personalized but are not yet virtual. We still touch, feel and grope our devices.

The interface of the future will reside in our senses and be hard-wired onto our brain. It will not just be intuitive, it will be part of the actual thought process.   

Whatever neural networks currently exist, they will migrate to the Net. We will all be connected, all the time. Its an exciting possibility not merely because of what it offers, but what it gets rid of: barriers to knowledge. The only barriers that will exist are those enforced by regulation and judicial power. Unlike today, the flow of knowledge will not (I hope) be controlled by physical and proprietary tools.

As is made clear in the premise of GITS, this neural network, of a global connected Net, will eventually (in a moment of artistic license with sound logic) create an altogether evolved form of intelligence. At the time of its creation, the Singularity theory had not created as many waves. Given its theoretical and highly abstract real life computing application, I prefer to follow the model argued by Roger Penrose (in ‘The Emperor’s new mind’); AI cannot emerge from algorithmic environments. The Net of the future will only become self-aware to the extent that an individual (community, tribe) is able to live, think and operate within an entirely virtual domain. This would still need input from the rest of the network, and its ability to think and act ‘conscious’ is still a transposed ability, not a unique creation. It is the only area that my view differs with that of Shirow (and Koestler).

In essence, the neural network in GITS is the existence of a Net that uses human knowledge and direct input from users in real time. It is not directly related to current neural network theories, yet it can be a very close proxy for what they hope to achieve.

I once wrote that the time was nigh for us to be able to ‘Google each other’s brains’. The Net would be just that. And more. Whatever emergent phenomena it spawns will be our next ‘leap’.

(to be continued...)