The Lights Of Jerome
(pareidolia)

Damn' fish tank is talking to me.

Its voice is bubbled out through dual filters.
It speaks in a fragmented,
incomprehensible,
conversational tone.

The lights of Jerome AZ,
the ones on the side of a mountain.
They were trying to spell something.

Just as I concentrated on those lights
and saw them shift through and away
from a meaningful pattern
before I could grasp it,
I listen hard to the fish tank.
I never quite get what it is saying.

I wonder if there is a shortcoming in my perception.
Are the fish tank's messages laden and fully formed?
Are they not well enough articulated?
Enunciated.

Are the contents, if any, still available
for interpretation and understanding?
Are they lost forever if I am not at present
an appropriate or capable receptor?

What increment of valence or ken,
or decrement of inhibition
could complete the connection?
Is neither of us ready? Just one of us
deficient in some way?

Are we or one of us
early, or too late? What half-beat
in our histories upset
the phasing?

The lights of Jerome.
They were, after a fashion, all in a row:
street lamps on a steep road that doubled
back, and back, and back again,
up the mountainside.

When I tracked them down
they were 4-AM gleeful,
laughing with me through
the racketing exhaust note that
sought and was repelled
by false-front stores on empty,
skewed sidewalks.

I think the fish tank is a little more serious.
Urgent.

Listen.
There.

Hear that?


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pareidolia - noun
the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist, as in considering the moon to have human features

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© Copyright 2001 TwinkleInMyEyeProductions, Frank S, Proprietor

What do you know fo' sho?

How many of us have lived third-world style?

How many of us will live that way, not just day-to-day, but minute-to-minute, when currents now coursing through the valleys of time erode artifice down to and through bedrock and return us all to the irreducible nugget of our humanity?

How bad will it be to live without the insulating envelope of "what we have"?

How much of what we have must be ground away before we recognize the bones of consciousness can support full and rewarding existence without:

style-of-life and style-of-expression trappings;

style-of-thought;

style-of-worship;

style-of-self regard;

style-of-interpersonal and -organizational regard?

Whatever the origin, whatever the resting-state condition, though a constant drain of energy to achieve bare survival means absence of even a moment for reflection, style emerges:

my abject poverty in material and moral dimensions will be more abject, shinier poverty than yours, and your tiny, dull reaction to that assertion will not persuade me otherwise. And here's an oblique punch in your knows as I scramble for edible bugs.

 

And so on, and so on, and dooby dooby do.

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© Copyright 2001 TwinkleInMyEyeProductions, Frank S, Proprietor

"A wink is as good as a nod . . ."

What it means: "I'm going to understand much of what you say, even if you don't know what you mean and don't say it well, and I expect you to extend the same offer as well as accept mine."

Or does it? It depends on what you mean by "wink," "nod," and "as good as," among other considerations. "Nod" is a good deal less difficult than "wink," since there is a quick toehold in the commonly used non-voluntary version of the latter: "blink," I think. Blink, and almost everything else is not wink, obviously. Not so, nod: everything else is not nod. See? Easy.

Come on! Not to put too fine a point on it, what is the "blink" equivalent for "nod"? See?

So we're considering a pair of variously determined phenomena that may or may not be as good as one another. "As good as." Is it a matter of having equal functionality, sufficiently similar effect on a recipient, or simple interchangeablity for the giver? Where does the definitive power lie, in the winkee/noddee, or the winker/nodder?

Or are we talking virtue here? A nod is more virtuous than a wink, surely. Eh? Are angels flitting around Heaven winking, or are they nodding? You'll undoubtedly find your trusted resources silent on this momentous issue.

(Whatever Google says is all right with me)

(As long as the numbers are there, naturally)

A nod is pretty easy to define: up and down, pivoting, gross head motion, right? Amplitude and rate could be modified, and that's about it. Dull stuff, certainly. (No mention of "Duck job" will be entertained. Pivot. Get it?) But what about a wink? For a start, we might notice there are two eyes that could wink. Might even declare that a wink involves but one eye at a time, and while blinks could happen to either eye independently, a two-eye open-close is by definition a blink.

OK, one eye at a time. Does it matter which? You know about right-brain, left-brain, right? You also know about the criss-cross of control between the left and right sides of the brain and the sides of the body, left? So, is one's choice of eye to wink dependent on -brainedness, and is the -brainedness determined in the physical or psychological brain or at the peripheral (eyelid) (or groin)? Is an habitual left-eye winker telling us something we might want to know about his/her honesty, integrity, sexual preference, favorite color? Does "left" mean "left" or "right" in wink language (don't forget that crossover!)? And vice versa?

But that is not the biggest problem: What about squint? I mean, I know people who squeeze and unclench one side of their face so an eye kind of closes and opens, and they call that a wink! Horrors! The real winkers pop that lid up and down monumentally independent of any other muscular involvement, voluntary or otherwise. You can actually hear them suckers pop closed and open. Snap! Now, that's a wink!

(And if you want an early peek, I think a wink is better than a nod. More later. Maybe not.)

(My most intelligent friend, verified by comparative IQ, TAT, and TMAS tests, is an accomplished winker. Picture this serene female face, eyes closed, directly ahead of you. One eye opens, the eyeball rotated fully, looking to the outside edge of her head. That open eye rotates fully to the bridge of her nose. As it clicks smartly closed, the other eye pops open, its gaze fully rotated to the nose bridge. It rotates fully to the outside edge of her head, and that lid slams shut. Now do it the other direction with both eyes open from the git. Man, that took a lot of practice.)

Do you think the face-squeeze winkers know they are actually winkless wonders? Are they embarassed? (Try to translate that into the realm of nod!) Is it impolite to ignore their affliction, or rude to comment on it? Will they ever get better if they don't suffer? (I can hear you nodding) When will they start getting better parking places?

Then we have to consider the Tourrette winkers. All uncontrolled and random, winking and blinking, blinking and winking. Do they know it is an affliction? Or is it a gift? Is Peter Lorre bug-eyed in his grave? (I can't hear your nods. You must be shaking your head. Is a nod as good as a shake? Next courtesy chapter of Flotsam Lane . . . Maybe not.)

Eye guest ouinks is best then naughds? Their much bester. Nudge nudge.

Frank "Up.Your.Nose.With.A.Tiquing.Eyelid.BEHIND.Your.Eyes" S

</standalone technicolor mind-yawn with no redeeming qualities (but it _qualifies_, don't it)>

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© Copyright 2001 TwinkleInMyEyeProductions, Frank S, Proprietor

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