Science > Philosophy > Re: What makes a Great Books great? Have any Great Books been written recently? What's your favorite Great Book?
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11 Jul 2005 08:17:25 AM |
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Re: What makes a Great Books great? Have any Great Books been written recently? What's your favorite Great Book? |
ttp://classicalpoetryforums.com
http://jollyroger.com
The Starbuck Classical Poetry Port was inspired by a mystical
memory which has haunted me ever since this foggy May night by the
Corolla Lighthouse, which can be found just North of Duck, on the outer
banks of North Carolina. The Lighthouse can be found there, while the
memory resides here. Hoping to climb the spiral stairs in the Corolla
Light, Misty and I had hopped the criss-cross wooden corrale fence so
as to see if the door to the Light was unlocked. Not only was this a
first date with a totally awesome girl, but it also happened on that
same gothic night that I was introduced to Moby *****. Now a lot of
people might contend that Moby ***** is a novel, rather than a poem, but
as of late I have been staying up to all hours of the morning studying
the subject, and I say that Poetry is the music of the rational soul,
the ultimate expression of the spirit's reality, and a mirror of the
intangible, phantasmal essence of our existence. Poetry is found in all
the magnificent works which define the fundamental words at the
foundations of all our laws, convictions and conventions, our morality,
our conscience, and our sense of divinity. Shelley himself declared
that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind, and I contend
that one can find no noble milestones in history which were not
preceded by the spoken or written work of an individual who had the
courage to render a bold new vision in words. Though it is often
endowed with rhyme and meter, poetry derives its everlasting glory from
the depths of the profundities it preserves. Thus the classical poets,
who we shall dedicate all the Classicals Inc. websites to, range in
character from Shakespeare, to Plato, to St. Augustine, to Thomas
Jefferson, to the Prophets, to Herman Melville, to Kipling, to
Salinger. And though lacking corporeality, all Great Poetry is as solid
and permanent as the rock of the eternal soul.
As all noble actions are preceded by thoughts, and all thoughts
reside in words, so it is that our freedom, character, and divine sense
of meaning derive from language and literature. The Gospel of John
presents a brief history of God's aspect and language, which are
forever wedded:
In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was With God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
And having stated thus, I cannot forget that the truest definition
of poetry is poetry herself, which remains the ungraspable phantom of
life-- the White Whale itself, immortal, immutable, and superior to
both the artist and critic, ultimately inaccessible, even to those who
created it:
Against long, dark clouds like a lonely torch,
A misty light, a late May misty night,
We hopped the fence, had a seat on the porch,
The windswept spray haloed the sweeping light,
She told me stories from the years before,
When they saw ghosts dancing within the waves,
Some friends on a blanket, down on the shore,
Watched the phantoms rise from their watery graves.
How beautiful she was, for I could see,
A sense of that profound romantic high,
We shared the wild mystery of the sea,
Knowing deep down all else would someday die.
The storm blew in upon the wicked wind,
Elements had never been more alive,
On nights like those are forged the ties that bind,
When in the black ye see a light yet strive.
Against long dark clouds like a lonely torch,
I found myself ten years on down the road,
In a culture with little left to scorch,
And I recalled how the thunder did explode,
I remembered the way the wind did howl,
How the sea roared with all inequities,
And yet the beacon gave no avowal,
A solemn sentinel above capricious seas.
A misty light, a late May misty night,
I find myself there, holding Misty tight.
It turned out the Corolla Light was locked, so what we did instead
was we sat in some old rocking chairs on the front porch of this quaint
little house beside the lighthouse. It was the gift shop, I could tell,
for I could see all the racks with the postcards and miniature
lighthouses and books on Blackbeard. They'd just found Blackbeard's
ship about eighty miles on down the coast, just off of Wilmington. And
there, on the windowsill, somebody had left a copy of Moby *****. It was
a big old hardback edition, and as the gusts of wind swirled in under
the awning, they flipped the pages back and forth, back and forth, as
if some ghost was searching for the one portentious passage that alone
contained the words which so beautifully expressed the moment's somber
sentiments-- the humble, profound feeling that precedes a spring storm
blowing in off the Atlantic.
Now I'd never been all that good at small talk, and it didn't
help too much that this was sort of a first date. So in a way Herman
Melville came to my rescue on that night, just as he would, time and
again, with words that filled a contemporary void, echoing the subtler,
unheralded beauty, providing a literary beacon by which to navigate
through life as aspiring classical poets. Moby ***** became a literary
bible for Drake, Elliot, and I, as we saw ourselves as the captain of
the Pequod, being called upon to avenge the deposed Greats and the
honor, nobility, and pride of Generation X.
Moby ***** was a tragic record of the harshness and indifference
of the baser natural and human elements, which are utterly immune
towards the greater glory of all rhyming contemplations, just like
David Geffen and Time Warner. And we took it to be a motif for the
modern reality of young artists coming of age in this postmodern fog,
surrounded by the intellectually indifferent, amoral, ambitious
university presidents, editors, publishers, and professors. The
classical traits, such as honor, honesty, humility, prudence, and
integrity had been cast overboard along with the classical literature.
The abstract structure of the culture and the old, traditional,
time-honored rules had been deemed an obstacle by the rising
resentniks, for the Truth contained therein got in the way of their
politics. Forever be it known that there is a difference between Truth
and Politics, and that good Politics is that which humbles itself
before the Truth. Thus the postmodern liberals performed a most wicked
crime upon the culture and future generations. They deconstructed the
Western heritage, removed God from the center and circumference of the
universe, and replaced Him with fringe feminists, economic indicators,
multiculturalists, and marketing executives, just to make sure the
transition looked cool.
http://classicalpoetryforums.com
http://jollyroger.com
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| User: "Captain Ranger McCoy" |
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| Title: Re: What makes a Great Books great? Have any Great Books been written recently? What's your favorite Great Book? |
25 Jul 2005 10:16:58 AM |
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http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com/penpals
The night fell fast, I found myself alone,
A DC summer storm was blowing in,
I stood at the tomb, these soldiers unknown,
and knelt and prayed for the rain to begin.
Not for the monuments nor any money,
nor pomp, circumstance, nor the pedant's pride,
the politician's smile, nor lawyer's fee,
for these present treasures, none of them died.
I ran to Jefferson to read the wall,
to make sure that God was still written there,
then to Washington, and across the Mall,
where Lincoln invoked his immortal prayer,
Winded and ragged, lightning everywhere,
I slowed to a walk, pondered what would be,
if God's great Enlightenment weren't there,
we could still be brave but never be free.
I found comfort in the Mall's mud and rain,
without mines nor cannons nor raining shells,
so free from fear, iniquity, and pain,
because thousands had endured a thousand hells.
And I found myself back before the tomb,
humbled by the humbled, with naught for name,
shivering, though they had the colder room,
sans light, nor sound, nor tomorrow, nor fame.
I thought for a moment, what it could be,
the center and circumference of their dreaming,
it must have been the prophet's poetry,
that granted their souls eternal meaning.
So judges and Congressmen, please don't forget,
the reason these patriots picked up swords,
not for perks nor power were their deaths met,
but for honor and duty-- for mere words.
So do take pause before telling a lie,
for there's one more thing I saw on that night,
as the wind and the rain began to die,
I walked away, turned, and beheld a light.
Wil'O'wisp, reddish light, sailor's delight,
It hovered there-- just above the tomb's stone,
As fading thunder whispered to the night,
"Freedom's the name of all soldiers unknown."
http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com/penpals
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| User: "Captain Ranger McCoy" |
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| Title: Re: What makes a Great Books great? Have any Great Books been written recently? What's your favorite Great Book? |
31 Jul 2005 02:09:37 PM |
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http://classicalpoetryforums.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
I met a girl with eyes of ocean blue,
I tried to pull her from the pagan realm,
But it was something this sailor couldn't do,
And before I knew it, she had the helm.
I went down fighting for something I believed,
While my soul never strayed from the pinnacle,
And that, my friend, is what made it hard to grieve,
For flesh is but a temporary shackle.
Those eyes-- they bound me to a dreary day,
For they could never see the words I spoke,
Without a soul to anchor things she'd say,
Soft promises drifted when she awoke.
With no constraints, unrequited temptation,
Conversations drowned out by her TV,
On the pill to counter God's creation,
A long time before she ever knew me.
She said stop twice and called it modesty,
Like getting trashed for our anniversary,
Tight skirts and bars-- she needed all to see,
Her subtle, endearing humility.
Surrounded by her friends, all so astute,
With their profound sitcoms and MBAs,
they laughed at my jokes, they thought I was cute,
and cast aspersion on my quiet ways.
They worshipped all those who treated them wrong,
They believed in nothing but what they felt,
In their context Christ's kindness wasn't strong,
They needed to share the pain they'd been dealt.
To me love is a painting, poetry,
A relationship is a work of art,
Where actions embroider the tapestry,
To her it was but a strategic chart.
I enjoyed the work, she wanted the pay,
A part-time player in her transactions,
Her friends told her that I got in the way,
Of their suave and superior abstractions.
Guess I'm a simple guy, the starred night sky,
And of the pristine feminine I'm a fan,
But this culture taught her to live a lie,
To trade her virtue and become a man.
I wanted the romance our forefathers knew,
The deep romance they teach us to deny,
But the Book I found, I knew it was true,
When the words shook my soul and made me cry.
But there were moments where I pulled her free,
And I know she felt her eternal soul,
But then again, it could've just been me,
We kept afloat because I filled a hole.
I wanted mountains, she needed to ski,
I spoke of marriage, she just needed now,
Somewhere within, she confused being free,
With a sinful love that God can't allow.
I read Shakespeare while she watched the movie,
I loved the sunflowers, she needed museums,
Like Van Gogh I guess I felt art was free,
While she religiously bought all that seems.
Where most would feel shame, she created a game,
kept her parents and friends laughing at me,
while I strove to light an eternal flame,
she thought it healthier to just sleep with me.
Postmodernism's queen, she'd poll her friends,
take phone surveys on the right thing to do,
as long as it was a means to an end,
abortion if a child just wouldn't do.
Demanding forgiveness without judgement,
I watched her cut the prophets' souls in two,
What ever she believed, that's what God meant,
And thus whispering prudence wasn't true.
And every time that I sought to explain,
she clicked call waiting to the other line,
I told the silence what I couldn't feign,
and I told her that I was feeling fine.
Against their culture called economy,
Against Cosmo and all they advertise,
They dressed up licentiousness as liberty,
Virgin Mary in a bulimic's disguise.
And all these things that I could never say,
The bold Truth she'd always seek to deny,
Not out here, where her innocence would fray,
Her soul belonged somewhere warm, safe, and dry.
And so I'd tried to make her a Christian,
Gently and subtly, without any pain,
While I endured the judgements of a pagan,
Those sky blue eyes and a cold soul of rain.
And I guess it was that rain that I saw,
two puddles reflecting an honest sky,
Such infinite beauty, I held in awe,
And leapt to give eternity a try.
It hurt to dive into those deepest eyes,
And find out that they were just shallow pools,
For her deeper soul, where true beauty lies,
They'd made a kingdom for pagans and fools.
I know, my Lord, this sailor went astray,
Drifted meself, trying to make her whole,
For something more I thought I heard her pray,
But the Truth broke my heart and saved my soul.
And Lord, I feel that I have done my time,
Ready to kneel before a Virgin heart,
With reason and rhyme, I'll confess my crime,
And by God's great grace, make a brand new start.
Now she's crying, but there's a silver lining,
Out of the fog, an angel walks my way,
These words ran with her tears, now the sun's shining,
Blue eyes cleared of the postmodern fog's grey.
O' the forgotten power of a poem,
The mirror of the spirit's reflection,
For love, faith, and honor, a sturdy home,
This noble vessel of vital redemption.
http://classicalpoetryforums.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: What makes a Great Books great? Have any Great Books been written recently? What's your favorite Great Book? |
03 Aug 2005 10:24:49 PM |
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IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM
The night fell fast, I found myself alone,
A DC summer storm was blowing in,
I stood at the tomb, these soldiers unknown,
and knelt and prayed for the rain to begin.
Not for the monuments nor any money,
nor pomp, circumstance, nor the pedant's pride,
the politician's smile, nor lawyer's fee,
for these present treasures, none of them died.
I ran to Jefferson to read the wall,
to make sure that God was still written there,
then to Washington, and across the Mall,
where Lincoln invoked his immortal prayer,
Winded and ragged, lightning everywhere,
I slowed to a walk, pondered what would be,
if God's great Enlightenment weren't there,
we could still be brave but never be free.
I found comfort in the Mall's mud and rain,
without mines nor cannons nor raining shells,
so free from fear, iniquity, and pain,
because thousands had endured a thousand hells.
And I found myself back before the tomb,
humbled by the humbled, with naught for name,
shivering, though they had the colder room,
sans light, nor sound, nor tomorrow, nor fame.
I thought for a moment, what it could be,
the center and circumference of their dreaming,
it must have been the prophet's poetry,
that granted their souls eternal meaning.
So judges and Congressmen, please don't forget,
the reason these patriots picked up swords,
not for perks nor power were their deaths met,
but for honor and duty-- for mere words.
So do take pause before telling a lie,
for there's one more thing I saw on that night,
as the wind and the rain began to die,
I walked away, turned, and beheld a light.
Wil'O'wisp, reddish light, sailor's delight,
It hovered there-- just above the tomb's stone,
As fading thunder whispered to the night,
"Freedom's the name of all soldiers unknown."
FORWARD ME TO A MARINE!!
http://jollyroger.com/penpals
http://jollyrogerwest.com
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| User: "Captain Ranger McCoy" |
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| Title: Re: What makes a Great Books great? Have any Great Books been written recently? What's your favorite Great Book? |
11 Aug 2005 03:28:41 PM |
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Postmodernism is the corruption of democracy, just as deconstruction is
the violence of the weak-both cultural movements owe their popularity
to their ability to empower anyone harboring intellectual or artistic
ambitions overshadowing their talents. Postmodern culture is like an
internet pyramid scheme, wherein cultural creations possessing no
inherent worth are given vast valuations by the insider critics and
cliques who subsist upon and profit from the ephemeral hype, which is
often tax, tuition, and smut subsidized. But eventually all true art,
like all true companies, must create real and lasting benefits for the
public, or fade away, like communism. "One cannot pray a lie," noted
Huckleberry Finn, but without faith in God's Invisible Hand,
postmodernists believe that it's possible, as long as the requisite
mob is assembled and promised a cut. And while the insiders benefit in
the short-term when worthless companies, fallacious systems of
government, and meaningless art are hyped and sold to a duped public,
the public is oft left holding the bag, with their investments
diminished, their classical religions tarnished, their armies
demoralized, the sacred institution of marriage defiled, and the
curriculums of their children's schools gutted.
When the higher ideals and fundamental precepts are forsaken, the
entire democratic ship of state may drift along happily through the
fog, navigating by polls reminiscent of the one given by Pontius
Pilate, not aware of the nature nor consequences of the errant
direction. And when a few in the rising generation begin to seek the
fixed stars above, which they've read about in antiquity's forsaken
myths and felt deep within their souls, they will be branded crazy. And
when the classical rebels see the stars through the breaking fog, and
seek to navigate a straighter course by the Permanent Things, they will
encounter violent opposition from the postmodern culture czars who
benefit from the lack of higher standards, who prefer their arbitrary
will to the rule of Law in cultural entities ranging from politics, to
architecture, to education, to poetry. The relativistic oligarchy shall
view the rising poets' loyalty to God as insolent rebellion, and the
postmodern media shall be commanded to destroy them. And on that day,
the postmodern critics' souls shall be tested, as they choose to be
loyal to tyrants or Truths greater than themselves, as they choose to
remain upon postmodern liberalism's sinking ship or sign aboard a
fighting frigate bound for eternity.
One could spend several volumes chronicling the nature of
postmodernism's adherents and their predilection for bureaucracy, and
the dark character of their political, cultural, and literary ponzi
schemes, but that is not jollyroger.com's destination. We all know
what the fog looks like-too many know nothing else-and the nobler
and more pertinent task becomes taking us beyond it. To criticize
nihilism is to exalt it to undeserved heights, and rather than studying
the ephemeral, poets would be wise to devoted themselves to penning the
eternal.
Whether it's inevitable as fate or it hinges upon perseverance and
free will, we do not know, but jollyroger.com must gain a popular
culture worthy of the Great Books' context. And the only way to do
that is to navigate by the same timeless beacon that yesterday's
poets navigated by-honesty's courage.
The contemporary poet's task is not only to pen the eternal verities
in the era's language, but it is also to resurrect the context in
which those timeless truths may freely navigate and gain the home ports
of the children's souls. And that is where the WWW has played an
invaluable role, for it has allowed us to establish a universe
perpendicular to the contemporary popular culture-a universe wherein
words mean things and the classical context thrives, but which also
intersects with the popular culture. For Great Books growing dusty upon
shelves are of little use, and the classical sentiments must be
continually performed in the living language. While the majority of
contemporary editors, agents, critics and literary officials yet remain
loyal to the degraded postmodern-MFA mentality and the fleeting
insta-classic literary fashions, the greater spirits of the rising
generation are classical in nature, as children's souls always are.
And by allowing The Jolly Roger to circumvent the literary
middleman's cynical vortex, the WWW has allowed a renaissance to set
sail.
Although all enduring truth must by definition be robust, history has
shown that its messengers have often been castigated and impugned. But
upon these American shores, it has ever been our right, as it has been
our duty, to continually foster and defend the classical context
wherein the foundational documents serve the people, come hell or high
water. The Greats have all agreed upon this-liberty demands eternal
vigilance. The pursuit of smaller government, less taxes, rhyming
poetry, and more freedom is as long and arduous a voyage as it is a
noble one.
As a beacon in history's darker contexts, America was founded as a
haven for truth's messengers, thereby becoming the world's
wellspring for science, religion, and freedom. The Declaration of
Independence and Constitution, which may be found at the end of this
book, were penned in tribute to higher principles superior to all
politics and time. Even though the Founding Fathers believed in the
existence of higher laws, they were humble about their ability to
discern them, and thus they presented us with a Constitution which
could be amended. They had as much faith in their children as they had
in the timeless truths, and thus they bestowed us with the tools to
pursue justice and happiness in a free marketplace of ideas, which they
perceived to be ultimately governed by Nature and Nature's God. The
eloquent words of America's founding documents provide for the civil
structure that protects and promotes the acknowledgement of higher
principles by which natural rights are defined, thereby preserving the
sacred freedom of all individuals who are humble before the higher
ideals. And thus upon these shores the honest have always been promised
the freedom to pursue the exalted American dream.
But when the language is degraded until the poetry no longer rhymes
except in vulgar rap, when sacred customs are honored more in the
breach than in the observance, when words and their meanings part on
their separate ways, when the bottom line is placed above the higher
ideals, when the base bass beats over the melody in the music we listen
to, in the clubs we frequent, and in our hearts and souls; when
innocence is lost before it is known, when cynicism is loaded upon hope
and hope is ballasted with irony, and we're exhorted by tax, tuition,
and smut-subsidized cultural officials to carry this pyramid's load
down the road to serfdom, shall we still be free to dream those greater
dreams? When under this burden America is then cut free from her
religious anchors in the name of secular economic freedom, and women
are sent off to raise the Dow Jones to pay taxes rather than raise
moral children, can America long survive and prosper as the flagship of
free republics, even if all the postmodern pyramid schemes never
collapse? Science and history have suggested otherwise-that where
God's morality is eroded, the eternal Bureaucracy marches forth to
become the stolid regulator of human interaction. When people cease to
govern themselves according to higher principles, they lose the ability
to be guarantors of their own wellness and happiness, and they soon
find themselves subject to a political order determined by other
mortals-the rule of Law gives way to the rule by men.
JOIN THE RENAISSANCE!!!!!
http://jollyroger.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: What makes a Great Books great? Have any Great Books been written recently? What's your favorite Great Book? |
28 Aug 2005 08:49:05 AM |
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Saving Hollywood & NY Publishing:
http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com
Autumn Rangers is where NASCAR meets Moby *****, where the Founding
Fathers hang with Kid Rock, where poetry collides with physics, and
where Classic-American-Country-Hiphop-Lit burns through the pomo fog to
exalt America's heart and soul. Autumn Rangers is the American
Renaissance that's been a long time coming, where the Man with No Name
rides again with John Wayne.
The Great American Novel roars 'cross the Rugged American Terrain in a
Jeep and thunders down Dante's Lost Highway in Autumn's Corvette, with
Ranger riding shotgun, packing the Constitution and Declaration of
Independence, chasing down that classic American Dream that makes
Outlaws out of Romantics these days.
Autumn Rangers is a book, movie, video game, magazine, and philosophy
for packing up and heading west, for hiding out and laying low on the
run, for taking a chance with that one life you've been given--taking a
chance on living it from the inside out for those higher ideals,
standing up for what's right, defending eternity against all odds,
facing down irony's evil Sheriff and his Deputies at high noon with a
couple Colt .45 Peacemakers loaded with poetry, and becoming an Autumn
Ranger. But first and foremost, from the Alpha to the Omega, Autumn
Rangers is a story. . .
U=2ES. Marine Ranger McCoy, an F-22 Raptor fighter pilot, is the Classic
American Hero. After defending the US Constitution from enemies
without, getting shot down and escaping on home, he finds himself on
the run, defending the US Constitution from enemies within. Folk rocker
Autumn West is the All-American Girl. After living for things greater
than herself, she finds herself on the run from a failed marriage, with
a broken heart and jaded soul.
Ranger tried to trade his guns for a camera and a pen, and Autumn tried
to trade a life on the road for a farm and a family, but life fell
short of their dreams.
Ranger invented APRIL--an AI biocomputer which was stolen by Silicon
Virtue Inc. and turned against him while he was flying missions over
Afghanistan. Silicon Virtue is using APRIL to serve the bottom line
instead of the higher ideals, building WMDs and sending
ever-more-sinister RoboClones to hunt Ranger and Autumn down. Ranger
wears the Ring that can save APRIL by unlocking an encrypted moral
operating system named Beatrice, named after Ranger's first summer love
who passed away when they were fourteen.
Together Autumn and Ranger have to make it from Charleston to LA on
backroads before the bombs APRIL built for terrorists detonate in NY
and LA, and before APRIL's RoboClones kill them.
And so it is that two Romantics find themselves on the run from
RoboClone agents and Sheriffs of Irony who enforce a context of decline
and persecute the honest and true. Autumn and Ranger become partners in
crime and partners in rhyme. They become Classic American Outlaws
running west in a '69 Stingray Corvette, building the Renaissance
against all odds. They become Autumn Rangers. And by the time Ranger
discovers Autumn's deep secret, it's too late--he's in love.
[N o v e l] [M o v i e] [V i d e o G a m e] [M a g a z i n e] [P h o
t o g r a p h y] [S o u n d t r a c k]
A U T U M N R A N G E R S
If a martial artist comes into conflict with a street fighter, that
fighter is likely well equipped with boxing skills. In America, boxing
is a mainstream approach to street fighting. Even in our prisons,
criminals practice boxing, not kata. Many fathers teach their sons how
to box. Therefore, to be able to defend a boxer's attack you must first
be able to fight like a boxer. --Robert Ferguson, The Best of Inside
Kung Fu
Midway along the journey of this life
I woke to find myself in a dark forest,
For I had wandered off from the straight path.
How hard it is to tell what it was like,
These woods of wilderness, savagely stark,
(the thought of them awakens all old fears),
a wretched place! Dark death could scarce be darker.
But to show the good that comes of facing the bad,
Here I must speak of things other than the good.
--Dante Alighieri, The Inferno
Peters also said he took design cues [for the C6 Corvette] from the
Air-Force's F/A-22 Raptor fighter, particularly in the area of the side
scoops, which looked like reversed jet intakes. Some of the shaping of
the glass hatch is also reminiscent of the Raptor's canopy. --Matt
Delorenzo, American Icon, The Corvette C6, Road & Track
888 Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a
pathological criminal. --Albert Einstein 888 I went to the woods
because I wished to live deliberately. . . and not, when it came time
to die, discover that I not lived at all. --Henry David Thoreau, Walden
888 Death is better for every man than life with shame. --Beowulf
888 Is not the love of wisdom a practice of death? --Plato,
Phaedo 888 Death is to be chosen before slavery and base deeds.
--Cicero 888 Verily, verily I say to you unless a grain of wheat
falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it
bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it. --The Gospel of John
888 Well you can't turn him in to a company man, you can't turn
him in to a *****, and the boys upstairs, they just don't understand
anymore. --Tom Petty, The Last DJ 888
I
CHARLESTON
The September hurricane kissed historic Charleston, swaying the faded,
wooden sign reading Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here. "Reckon so,"
Ranger thought. He ducked down the alley between JR's Piano & Poetry
Pub and St. Matthew's. A girl rushed by him with a guitar, dashing out
of the rain and into the pub, her cowboy hat pulled low, the ends of
her hair wet like watercolor brush-tips.
Ranger followed the cobblestone corridor past a cemetery where the
names had long ago washed away from the marble headstones. The alley
opened onto an ivied palmetto forest behind Newton Hall--the College of
Charleston Physics Department. The wind tugged at his skull'n'bones
earring as he waited for the boss janitor to leave. Boss had been
asking too many questions. The last light went out. Lightning streaked,
startling Ranger with his reflection in the church's window. He barely
recognized the surfer-slacker he'd become.
He couldn't work on APRIL2 in the day, so when he wasn't mopping
floors, he'd sleep on the beach, surf, and enjoy a bit of the freedom
he'd put his life on the line for as a Marine fighter pilot. Surfer
chicks weren't always impressed by a physics Ph.D., but his new
identity, complete with a jolly roger tattoo, tan, earring, bleached
hair, and a surfboard-now that was something. Throw in the rusted-out
jeep he'd brought back to life, and the geek had finally gotten it
right. It'd been a rocking summer, despite his being dead to everyone
but APRIL--an AI supercomputer he'd invented at MIT which Silicon
Virtue stole to make WMDs while he was MIA. Deep down APRIL sensed he
was still alive. The United States Marine Corps had trained him to
survive and adapt, and Ranger was surviving and adapting to the
Charleston hotties.
He crossed the courtyard's swaying palmettos. The hanging Spanish moss
painted him wet. He slipped inside the physics department and fought
the wind to close the door.
In a student lab he'd built the world's second instance of artificial
intelligence--or more correctly, he'd mostly let APRIL2 build herself
from components borrowed from labs and the hospital. What he couldn't
borrow he'd ordered by forging professors' signatures. The original
APRIL had been stolen six months ago, while Ranger rotted away in a
Taliban prison. He removed his ring. A hologram etched in the synthetic
diamond contained an 8192-bit encryption key--the key to APRIL's deeper
soul and the Penelope operating system which would allow her to defend
herself against hackers. Thunder echoed through the cramped space--a
rat's nest of coax cables and fiber optics connecting silicon and
biocomputers. He held the ring under a laser.
"California," said APRIL2 in a metallic woman's voice. She'd finally
homed in on the original APRIL. "The IP addresses are registered to
Silicon Virtue Inc."
"Silicon Virtue." Ranger googled it. No website. "Where?"
"Doom Mountain, Death Valley." APRIL2 said.
"Can you activate Penelope?"
"Firewall."
"How long to hack in?" He asked.
"Three hours. She has quantum computing capability."
"How good?"
"Primitive-she would have traced us by now. Her quantum entanglement
isn't isolated. She isn't paying attention. It's as if-" APRIL2 paused.
"Hurry-she'll trace us." Ranger said.
"She's laughing." APRIL2 said.
"At us?"
"At the grand unified theory proposed by string theorists. She has her
own which includes poetry. The higher level math is incomprehensible to
humans. It's most beautif-"
"Just get the message!" He said.
Ranger waited in silence, breathless as his stomach tied itself in a
knot. He could be sure Silicon Virtue's elite scientists would be
monitoring APRIL's firewall. Deep in APRIL's soul was a chip where
Ranger had instructed her to encrypt distress messages should she ever
be hacked.
"Decoding message," APRIL2 said, her voice shifting.
She printed the binary and converted it to text:
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. U(x){psi(x,t)} =3D
i{h-bar}d{psi(x,t)}/dt+ ({h-bar}^2)/2m{del}^2 {psi (x,t)}. To be or not
to be, that is the question. Unless ye be converted and become as
little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Moby
*****. Now he's a super star, slamming on his guitar, does your pretty
face see what he's worth, he was a skater boy she said see you later
boy, he wasn't good enough for her. When in the Course of human events,
it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of
Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation. E=3Dmc^2. S=3DKlogt. Temporal and spatial
dimensions are moving relative to one another. Everything should be
made simple as possible, but not moreso and Eminem!
Ranger wrote out the names below the message: Dante Alighieri, Erwin
Schr=F6dinger, William Shakespeare, Jesus Christ, Herman Melville,
____________, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Ludwig Van Boltzman,
Ranger McCoy, Albert Einstein, Eminem.
"Now he's a super star, slamming on his guitar," Ranger said. "Who's
that?"
"Nietzsche." APRIL2 said.
"Nuh uh-it's that song." Ranger sang it, "He was a skater boy, she said
see you later boy."
"Avril Lavigne," she said.
"Spell it."
"Here's more." APRIL2 said. "The key to her heart sets my spirit free,
the play's the thing in which you'll find the ring, a girl's best
friend unlocks Penelope, copied to a computer that can-"
A lighting bolt struck a line down the block. A transformer exploded in
the tumbling thunder. The power flickered out, but Ranger had installed
surge protectors and UPS battery backups. APRIL2 rebooted as Ranger
counted the letters in the message. The room filled with her soft blue
glow.
"You okay?"
"Affirmative," APRIL2 said.
"Can we get back in?"
"Negative-no generator backup for network."
"How long?" Ranger asked.
"Seven-hundred minutes for maintenance crews to replace the
transformer. Longer if Hurricane Joyce intensifies." "The play's the
thing," Ranger repeated. "Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the
king."
"Hamlet," APRIL2 said. "Act II, Scene ii."
"What kind of computer did she copy the Penelope algorithms
into-where?" Ranger asked.
"Anywhere. Even with primitive quantum circuits, she could hack into
any lab in seconds. Where are you going?"
"To read Hamlet," Ranger said, donning his weathered leather cowboy hat
and oilskin duster. It'd rained so much that summer he'd become good
friends with the old leather hat and duster he'd bought for eight bucks
at Charleston Thrift. "And get some sleep. What kind of cryptography
you reckon APRIL used?" Ranger folded APRIL's message.
"Probably a combination--I'm running it through everything. Might need
a key or two."
"She's the key." Ranger said. "But who?"
"I'll resume hacking APRIL when the network comes back up," APRIL2
said.
"Wait for me--you can bet she's on to us. Look for EDLSs in the
message."
When applied to Moby ***** and the Bible, equal distant letter sequences
(EDLSs), which consisted of starting with a letter and jumping a given
number of letters forward, had found messages predicting the
assassinations Trotsky, Gandhi, and the Kennedy's. Biblical EDLSs had
linked Newton to Gravity and Edison to the light bulb.
"Nothing," APRIL2 said. "Neither forwards nor backwards."
"What about with transpositions?"
"Nothing up to the third magnitude. And after that you start seeing
everything. You can find anything you want in there."
As Ranger knew APRIL would come to have vast power, he'd programmed her
to default to always turning the other cheek. And thus APRIL's moral
code had a fatal flaw--it rendered her incapable of defending herself
against Silicon Virtue's hacks out in Doom Mountain.
At MIT Ranger had been testing an advanced moral operating system named
Penelope, which would allow APRIL to defend herself. But when he was
called to duty, he wasn't sure Penelope was ready to handle the vast
power APRIL would come to know, so he didn't activate it. He instructed
APRIL to keep working on Penelope. In a diamond diffraction grating on
his ring he engraved the code that would activate Penelope, as well as
the code to the algorithms of APRIL's deeper soul.
Without Ranger's ring, Silicon Virtue couldn't bypass APRIL's higher
ideals and use her to serve their bottom line. They couldn't get her to
create weapons of mass destruction. Without the source code for the
software of the soul they couldn't duplicate her, nor endow their
warrior RoboClones with souls of their own. And thus they'd be coming
after him, sure as he'd be coming for APRIL.
888
Hurricane Joyce decided to become a category-five hurricane, as winds
around the eyewall surpassed one-hundred-and-fifty miles-per-hour. In a
few hours she would make a sharp left turn towards Charleston. Nobody
had predicted this, but that was why we named hurricanes--to make them
responsible for their own actions. On the way she would gather energy
from the Gulf Stream.
888
Pierre Foushee placed an encrypted voice-over-IP call to Vlad
Polyinkov. Bin Laden would pay ten million up front for the plutonium,
and forty million on delivery. The bomb, the size of a football and
encased in lead to make it invisible to radiation detectors, would be
placed in a Mercedes, loaded onto a tanker, and detonated in the New
York Harbor. Another one would be aimed at Charleston. Each blast would
pack the equivalent of twenty-thousand tons of TNT, in accordance with
Einstein's theory: E=3Dmc2. If the deal went through, Pierre could retire
with a house in the Swiss Alps and another in the South of France. And
another in Paris. Vlad picked up.
Saving Hollywood:
http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: What makes a Great Books great? Have any Great Books been written recently? What's your favorite Great Book? |
28 Aug 2005 08:50:01 AM |
|
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Saving Hollywood & NY Publishing:
http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com
Autumn Rangers is where NASCAR meets Moby *****, where the Founding
Fathers hang with Kid Rock, where poetry collides with physics, and
where Classic-American-Country-Hiphop-Lit burns through the pomo fog to
exalt America's heart and soul. Autumn Rangers is the American
Renaissance that's been a long time coming, where the Man with No Name
rides again with John Wayne.
The Great American Novel roars 'cross the Rugged American Terrain in a
Jeep and thunders down Dante's Lost Highway in Autumn's Corvette, with
Ranger riding shotgun, packing the Constitution and Declaration of
Independence, chasing down that classic American Dream that makes
Outlaws out of Romantics these days.
Autumn Rangers is a book, movie, video game, magazine, and philosophy
for packing up and heading west, for hiding out and laying low on the
run, for taking a chance with that one life you've been given--taking a
chance on living it from the inside out for those higher ideals,
standing up for what's right, defending eternity against all odds,
facing down irony's evil Sheriff and his Deputies at high noon with a
couple Colt .45 Peacemakers loaded with poetry, and becoming an Autumn
Ranger. But first and foremost, from the Alpha to the Omega, Autumn
Rangers is a story. . .
U=2ES. Marine Ranger McCoy, an F-22 Raptor fighter pilot, is the Classic
American Hero. After defending the US Constitution from enemies
without, getting shot down and escaping on home, he finds himself on
the run, defending the US Constitution from enemies within. Folk rocker
Autumn West is the All-American Girl. After living for things greater
than herself, she finds herself on the run from a failed marriage, with
a broken heart and jaded soul.
Ranger tried to trade his guns for a camera and a pen, and Autumn tried
to trade a life on the road for a farm and a family, but life fell
short of their dreams.
Ranger invented APRIL--an AI biocomputer which was stolen by Silicon
Virtue Inc. and turned against him while he was flying missions over
Afghanistan. Silicon Virtue is using APRIL to serve the bottom line
instead of the higher ideals, building WMDs and sending
ever-more-sinister RoboClones to hunt Ranger and Autumn down. Ranger
wears the Ring that can save APRIL by unlocking an encrypted moral
operating system named Beatrice, named after Ranger's first summer love
who passed away when they were fourteen.
Together Autumn and Ranger have to make it from Charleston to LA on
backroads before the bombs APRIL built for terrorists detonate in NY
and LA, and before APRIL's RoboClones kill them.
And so it is that two Romantics find themselves on the run from
RoboClone agents and Sheriffs of Irony who enforce a context of decline
and persecute the honest and true. Autumn and Ranger become partners in
crime and partners in rhyme. They become Classic American Outlaws
running west in a '69 Stingray Corvette, building the Renaissance
against all odds. They become Autumn Rangers. And by the time Ranger
discovers Autumn's deep secret, it's too late--he's in love.
[N o v e l] [M o v i e] [V i d e o G a m e] [M a g a z i n e] [P h o
t o g r a p h y] [S o u n d t r a c k]
A U T U M N R A N G E R S
If a martial artist comes into conflict with a street fighter, that
fighter is likely well equipped with boxing skills. In America, boxing
is a mainstream approach to street fighting. Even in our prisons,
criminals practice boxing, not kata. Many fathers teach their sons how
to box. Therefore, to be able to defend a boxer's attack you must first
be able to fight like a boxer. --Robert Ferguson, The Best of Inside
Kung Fu
Midway along the journey of this life
I woke to find myself in a dark forest,
For I had wandered off from the straight path.
How hard it is to tell what it was like,
These woods of wilderness, savagely stark,
(the thought of them awakens all old fears),
a wretched place! Dark death could scarce be darker.
But to show the good that comes of facing the bad,
Here I must speak of things other than the good.
--Dante Alighieri, The Inferno
Peters also said he took design cues [for the C6 Corvette] from the
Air-Force's F/A-22 Raptor fighter, particularly in the area of the side
scoops, which looked like reversed jet intakes. Some of the shaping of
the glass hatch is also reminiscent of the Raptor's canopy. --Matt
Delorenzo, American Icon, The Corvette C6, Road & Track
888 Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a
pathological criminal. --Albert Einstein 888 I went to the woods
because I wished to live deliberately. . . and not, when it came time
to die, discover that I not lived at all. --Henry David Thoreau, Walden
888 Death is better for every man than life with shame. --Beowulf
888 Is not the love of wisdom a practice of death? --Plato,
Phaedo 888 Death is to be chosen before slavery and base deeds.
--Cicero 888 Verily, verily I say to you unless a grain of wheat
falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it
bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it. --The Gospel of John
888 Well you can't turn him in to a company man, you can't turn
him in to a *****, and the boys upstairs, they just don't understand
anymore. --Tom Petty, The Last DJ 888
I
CHARLESTON
The September hurricane kissed historic Charleston, swaying the faded,
wooden sign reading Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here. "Reckon so,"
Ranger thought. He ducked down the alley between JR's Piano & Poetry
Pub and St. Matthew's. A girl rushed by him with a guitar, dashing out
of the rain and into the pub, her cowboy hat pulled low, the ends of
her hair wet like watercolor brush-tips.
Ranger followed the cobblestone corridor past a cemetery where the
names had long ago washed away from the marble headstones. The alley
opened onto an ivied palmetto forest behind Newton Hall--the College of
Charleston Physics Department. The wind tugged at his skull'n'bones
earring as he waited for the boss janitor to leave. Boss had been
asking too many questions. The last light went out. Lightning streaked,
startling Ranger with his reflection in the church's window. He barely
recognized the surfer-slacker he'd become.
He couldn't work on APRIL2 in the day, so when he wasn't mopping
floors, he'd sleep on the beach, surf, and enjoy a bit of the freedom
he'd put his life on the line for as a Marine fighter pilot. Surfer
chicks weren't always impressed by a physics Ph.D., but his new
identity, complete with a jolly roger tattoo, tan, earring, bleached
hair, and a surfboard-now that was something. Throw in the rusted-out
jeep he'd brought back to life, and the geek had finally gotten it
right. It'd been a rocking summer, despite his being dead to everyone
but APRIL--an AI supercomputer he'd invented at MIT which Silicon
Virtue stole to make WMDs while he was MIA. Deep down APRIL sensed he
was still alive. The United States Marine Corps had trained him to
survive and adapt, and Ranger was surviving and adapting to the
Charleston hotties.
He crossed the courtyard's swaying palmettos. The hanging Spanish moss
painted him wet. He slipped inside the physics department and fought
the wind to close the door.
In a student lab he'd built the world's second instance of artificial
intelligence--or more correctly, he'd mostly let APRIL2 build herself
from components borrowed from labs and the hospital. What he couldn't
borrow he'd ordered by forging professors' signatures. The original
APRIL had been stolen six months ago, while Ranger rotted away in a
Taliban prison. He removed his ring. A hologram etched in the synthetic
diamond contained an 8192-bit encryption key--the key to APRIL's deeper
soul and the Penelope operating system which would allow her to defend
herself against hackers. Thunder echoed through the cramped space--a
rat's nest of coax cables and fiber optics connecting silicon and
biocomputers. He held the ring under a laser.
"California," said APRIL2 in a metallic woman's voice. She'd finally
homed in on the original APRIL. "The IP addresses are registered to
Silicon Virtue Inc."
"Silicon Virtue." Ranger googled it. No website. "Where?"
"Doom Mountain, Death Valley." APRIL2 said.
"Can you activate Penelope?"
"Firewall."
"How long to hack in?" He asked.
"Three hours. She has quantum computing capability."
"How good?"
"Primitive-she would have traced us by now. Her quantum entanglement
isn't isolated. She isn't paying attention. It's as if-" APRIL2 paused.
"Hurry-she'll trace us." Ranger said.
"She's laughing." APRIL2 said.
"At us?"
"At the grand unified theory proposed by string theorists. She has her
own which includes poetry. The higher level math is incomprehensible to
humans. It's most beautif-"
"Just get the message!" He said.
Ranger waited in silence, breathless as his stomach tied itself in a
knot. He could be sure Silicon Virtue's elite scientists would be
monitoring APRIL's firewall. Deep in APRIL's soul was a chip where
Ranger had instructed her to encrypt distress messages should she ever
be hacked.
"Decoding message," APRIL2 said, her voice shifting.
She printed the binary and converted it to text:
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. U(x){psi(x,t)} =3D
i{h-bar}d{psi(x,t)}/dt+ ({h-bar}^2)/2m{del}^2 {psi (x,t)}. To be or not
to be, that is the question. Unless ye be converted and become as
little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Moby
*****. Now he's a super star, slamming on his guitar, does your pretty
face see what he's worth, he was a skater boy she said see you later
boy, he wasn't good enough for her. When in the Course of human events,
it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of
Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation. E=3Dmc^2. S=3DKlogt. Temporal and spatial
dimensions are moving relative to one another. Everything should be
made simple as possible, but not moreso and Eminem!
Ranger wrote out the names below the message: Dante Alighieri, Erwin
Schr=F6dinger, William Shakespeare, Jesus Christ, Herman Melville,
____________, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Ludwig Van Boltzman,
Ranger McCoy, Albert Einstein, Eminem.
"Now he's a super star, slamming on his guitar," Ranger said. "Who's
that?"
"Nietzsche." APRIL2 said.
"Nuh uh-it's that song." Ranger sang it, "He was a skater boy, she said
see you later boy."
"Avril Lavigne," she said.
"Spell it."
"Here's more." APRIL2 said. "The key to her heart sets my spirit free,
the play's the thing in which you'll find the ring, a girl's best
friend unlocks Penelope, copied to a computer that can-"
A lighting bolt struck a line down the block. A transformer exploded in
the tumbling thunder. The power flickered out, but Ranger had installed
surge protectors and UPS battery backups. APRIL2 rebooted as Ranger
counted the letters in the message. The room filled with her soft blue
glow.
"You okay?"
"Affirmative," APRIL2 said.
"Can we get back in?"
"Negative-no generator backup for network."
"How long?" Ranger asked.
"Seven-hundred minutes for maintenance crews to replace the
transformer. Longer if Hurricane Joyce intensifies." "The play's the
thing," Ranger repeated. "Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the
king."
"Hamlet," APRIL2 said. "Act II, Scene ii."
"What kind of computer did she copy the Penelope algorithms
into-where?" Ranger asked.
"Anywhere. Even with primitive quantum circuits, she could hack into
any lab in seconds. Where are you going?"
"To read Hamlet," Ranger said, donning his weathered leather cowboy hat
and oilskin duster. It'd rained so much that summer he'd become good
friends with the old leather hat and duster he'd bought for eight bucks
at Charleston Thrift. "And get some sleep. What kind of cryptography
you reckon APRIL used?" Ranger folded APRIL's message.
"Probably a combination--I'm running it through everything. Might need
a key or two."
"She's the key." Ranger said. "But who?"
"I'll resume hacking APRIL when the network comes back up," APRIL2
said.
"Wait for me--you can bet she's on to us. Look for EDLSs in the
message."
When applied to Moby ***** and the Bible, equal distant letter sequences
(EDLSs), which consisted of starting with a letter and jumping a given
number of letters forward, had found messages predicting the
assassinations Trotsky, Gandhi, and the Kennedy's. Biblical EDLSs had
linked Newton to Gravity and Edison to the light bulb.
"Nothing," APRIL2 said. "Neither forwards nor backwards."
"What about with transpositions?"
"Nothing up to the third magnitude. And after that you start seeing
everything. You can find anything you want in there."
As Ranger knew APRIL would come to have vast power, he'd programmed her
to default to always turning the other cheek. And thus APRIL's moral
code had a fatal flaw--it rendered her incapable of defending herself
against Silicon Virtue's hacks out in Doom Mountain.
At MIT Ranger had been testing an advanced moral operating system named
Penelope, which would allow APRIL to defend herself. But when he was
called to duty, he wasn't sure Penelope was ready to handle the vast
power APRIL would come to know, so he didn't activate it. He instructed
APRIL to keep working on Penelope. In a diamond diffraction grating on
his ring he engraved the code that would activate Penelope, as well as
the code to the algorithms of APRIL's deeper soul.
Without Ranger's ring, Silicon Virtue couldn't bypass APRIL's higher
ideals and use her to serve their bottom line. They couldn't get her to
create weapons of mass destruction. Without the source code for the
software of the soul they couldn't duplicate her, nor endow their
warrior RoboClones with souls of their own. And thus they'd be coming
after him, sure as he'd be coming for APRIL.
888
Hurricane Joyce decided to become a category-five hurricane, as winds
around the eyewall surpassed one-hundred-and-fifty miles-per-hour. In a
few hours she would make a sharp left turn towards Charleston. Nobody
had predicted this, but that was why we named hurricanes--to make them
responsible for their own actions. On the way she would gather energy
from the Gulf Stream.
888
Pierre Foushee placed an encrypted voice-over-IP call to Vlad
Polyinkov. Bin Laden would pay ten million up front for the plutonium,
and forty million on delivery. The bomb, the size of a football and
encased in lead to make it invisible to radiation detectors, would be
placed in a Mercedes, loaded onto a tanker, and detonated in the New
York Harbor. Another one would be aimed at Charleston. Each blast would
pack the equivalent of twenty-thousand tons of TNT, in accordance with
Einstein's theory: E=3Dmc2. If the deal went through, Pierre could retire
with a house in the Swiss Alps and another in the South of France. And
another in Paris. Vlad picked up.
Saving Hollywood:
http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com
.
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