We look for endings so we can forge new beginnings, but sometimes endings don't come. They stretch out for months and years, tendrils of continuation infiltrating attempts at new beginnings, weakening structure and resolve: the unfinished past slowly decaying an unrealized future.
As complex as regular expressions can be to put together, because of all the wonderful tools and tutorials out there, I've always been able to work through that bit of stickiness with persistence and patience.
The biggest problem has been, and likely always will be, determining the patterns in the given blocks of text which will reliably match to the bits I want and exclude the bits I don't.
Cloning was easy. Splicing in a group mind, significantly less so. Allowing that group mind to function when the nodes were spread up and down the time stream, impossible. But they did it.
Time travel itself, a different discipline with it’s own impossibilities was relevant to the creation of the ‘dopplers only in so much as their purpose was tied to it’s existence. Their method of communication did rely heavily on physics, but was tied to quantum entanglement, which turned out to have it’s own built in cross-time capabilities, and not to the issues of gravity and power which gave access to the time stream.
Entangling the ganglion in a ‘doppler tied to the group mind required sections of cerebral tissue be extracted, processed, and then re-implanted. Failure increased in likelihood each step along the way, which at best would leave you with a clone designed for, but unattached to the group mind, and at worst a corpse. Because the group mind could only support so many nodes at a time, a creche of unaltered dopplers was kept, ready to go through entanglement whenever an existing node went dark and needed to be replaced.
There were only two stem lines successfully bred for a group mind, both of them based on the x-chromosome. For historic reasons of placement and success, a y based line was continually sought, but had never been successfully developed. The power balance between men and women for so much of history was such it was more difficult to achieve the desired changes.
Reached the end of Being Erica and am actually a bit sad about it.
The show had too regular helpings of cheese, and the constant voice-over moralizing usually detracted from the story rather than developing it, but I can't think of another show which so regularly acknowledged the reality of human complexity and relationships.
It's not that it avoided easy endings, for the time and the platform I think that would be too much to ask, but I regularly found myself surprised somewhere between the set up of an episode's conflict and its too pat resolution at how complexity and true insight were allowed to bloom in the stories and characters.
And while I honestly didn't like most of the characters, Michael Riley's Dr. Tom was a treasure.
Waiting for the coffee to kick in before actually diving into the day's project.
What we were
in the shadows of street lamps and neon,
multiplied and refracted by storefront windows,
by each others eyes,
could not maintain
beneath inspection and incandescence.
What I'm singing this week at the office (and getting yelled at by the staff for being obnoxious):
High Hopes - Panic! At the Disco
The story doesn't really resonate with me, but the cadence and the beat make it impossible not to dance and sing along, and I very much enjoy Mr. Urie's voice.
I Miss You (Piano version) - Clean Bandit (feat. Julia Michaels)
Speaking of voices, it's quite possible Julia Micheals has the best voice ever. Certainly the most nuanced and evocative. She says more with tone and inflection than some singers do with all 'the best words'.
Wanting - Gordi
Gordi's vocal style, in contrast, seems tuned a bit flat, but that matches perfectly with so many of her lyrics. I really love the double entendre and the wonderful way she reflects both will and confusion.
Not able to get out of the country this year, I’ve put together a long weekend in Chicago at the end of November. I was planning to do this anyways, but when I found out Fenne Lily would be performing at a club there, it finalized my intent and gave me the date around which to plan.
Having grown up in Southern California in and around Los Angelos and the sprawling cities of Orange County, it's a bit odd to be attracted to a big city like Chicago as a vacation spot, but I was so charmed by my brief visit last year, and felt cheated by the short time I got to spend at the Art Institute that I really couldn’t imagine not going back as soon as I could arrange it.
This trip's only a three day jaunt, but we’ll be staying just a few blocks from the Art Institute, which should give me more than enough time to explore both that corner of downtown Chicago, the Art Institute, and at least one or two of the other attractions in the immediate area. Plus seeing Fenne Lily live (and possibly even learning to pronounce her first name)! As mentioned, I’d planned to make this visit anyways, but being able to see her, especially at this point in her career, is an incredible bit of serendipity.
Ideologies accrete like scales over shapes of fear, armored scabs cultivated in place of healing. We pick at them pathologically and start looking ever more like monsters.
So many things in the world reaching.
Myself,
I am content,
In the dark hours of the morning,
To reach simply for you.
