The old man tapped his cane three times before he took a step and then three times again for the next step. In this way, stooped and bent, and hands shaking a bit, he made progress, slow but sure, to the librarian's desk. He tipped his red beret to the young women standing there watching him. She smiled in greeting and asked if she could help him.

"Yes," he said. "I'm in need of a book."
"Well," she replied, I hope we have what you are looking for. What is the title?"
"I know longer remember it, nor the author, but it is exactly the book I need now."
"Well then, do you recall what it is about?"
"Well, I have an image that's clear, but I can't seem to get the words to describe it."
"If you close your eyes, can you see it?"
"Yes, I can see it."
"Maybe you don't need a book."
"Why do you say that? You are a librarian."
"But sometimes, the book you need is not yet written. Perhaps your seeking the book is a way to find that you are the author. Could that be?"

There is a website (wombo.art) that uses artificial intelligence to translate words into artistic images

in various genres (etching, pastel, dark fantasy, mystic, etc.)

Here is the image for the words Fex and Coo in a fantasy style.

What is your reaction to this?

ral

The world may objectively exist but our encounter with it—in whatever way—fictionalizes it.

From most books on writing the novel, you will find that dreams are taboo. “Do not go there” is the general advice.

No one ever asks what novel the dream would write. Truth be told, all dreams are incipient novels.

Dreams, of course, are the focus of endless analysis, but analysis does not write novels, is not interested in this potency, always turning the dream into something else—to be generous, perhaps this too a fiction.

James Walton has reviewed Keith Ridgway’s new novel A Shock, titling his review, “Everything is Fiction,” in the December 16 edition of The New York Review of Books. Read it. Then read Ridgway. Then read your dream.

ral

From Science Daily:

Scientists around the world have been working in earnest to improve understanding of an increasingly virulent superbug, Clostridium difficile. The highly contagious hospital-acquired pathogen, designated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the five most urgent threats to the U.S. healthcare system, causes more than 500,000 infections and 29,000 deaths each year at a total societal cost exceeding $5 billion.

This under reported urgency is likely to become more frequent.

Governments will increasingly try to keep a lid on all "panic inducing" news. This is backward thinking when what is necessarily is for everyone to learn just what sorts of risks are mounting and the need not to panic, or deny, but to recruit effort in the right direction. Of course the politicization of everything makes this totally unlikely.

~ral

Hi all,

Here's some news from the world of science. Yes, scientists still exist in spite of Trumpian denial.

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

World's first living robots can now reproduce, scientists say
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/americas/xenobots-self-replicating-robots-scn/index.html

Physicists Detect Elusive 'Ghost Particles' in The LHC For The Very First Time
https://www.sciencealert.com/for-the-first-time-neutrinos-may-have-been-detected-at-the-large-hadron-collider?fbclid=IwAR2lKWu6ZjxkUhpmBnBj9fiwl3hw3-SskX7fTEEakDrlCpWxtObJEtDN13E

In the quantum realm, not even time flows as you might expect
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211126130851.htm

ral

There is a lively discussion gong on about this finding at fexandcoo.website

Hermit of Mysteries

I've just returned from a dream meeting
I met a man known as the Hermit of Mysteries
He talked about the future, his and mine
We were linked, he said, had been for a long time
For a hermit he seemed unusually talkative
I asked him why, he said he'd received news
Of what is coming and he could not be silent
Tell me, then, what is this news of the future
The future everyone knows is not the future
You will hear the future from no one out there
The news is that the future is in your dreams

Important:

https://time.com/4970767/rem-sleep-dreams-health/?fbclid=IwAR0ZanHvzgt2aq3fOtUrdgymz6c8Zn9EDn5oBr3LhXmzbexa9xz45SpE6pU

Things Seen in a Dream Scene

Clustered they were—here and there
Yes, remnants of humans remained
Living on mountains of human remains
No one knows what lies beneath
The alluvial deserting and swamping
The constant rain washes everything
Thirst is quenched but hunger is not
So very hot the wet rises steaming
But the birds do not notice, they are flying
While all the animals follow them northward
Humans not following, they’ve forgotten how
No children are seen, no babies' cries are heard
There is talk of what might have been, what could be
Forgotten now that humans were gatherers and hunters
Not remembering humans are animals, are mammals
Not remembering anything useful now, not even dreams