Triptych #23: Taking Flight

"Taking Flight" - photo by Mac Tonnies - uploaded to Fllckr, January, 2008

"One of the reasons I like packing a camera is that it engages the part of my brain that processes "random," acausal events. I literally see things I've never noticed before; a sort of secret world opens up, if fleetingly, bringing to mind multiple transparencies stacked atop one another and brought to life by a projector. (Rudy Rucker, who's written on similar themes, thinks the universe is filled with "paracomputations" that take the form of natural processes. His trained awareness of relevant phenomena, such as the intricate geometric patterns on seashells and the interplay of wave-fronts in a pool of water, might help account for some of his acutely observant photographs.)

In my case, after seeing the "23" limo, I found myself inside a bus-stop with brown-tinted plastic windows. Someone had written "23" there, bedecking the number with a halo as if to memorialize it. (The recurring trumpet design from Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49" came to mind . . . as well as the sense of inhabiting a rather smug and mocking paracomputation.)

Later on the same walk I recalled a dream I had last night, in which I was playing with a sheet of aluminum foil that returned to its uncrumpled original state whenever I unballed my fist (the "memory metal" described by witnesses to the Roswell debris.) Moments later I found a sheet of foil on the sidewalk -- nothing remotely dramatic, but nonetheless a bit like some sort of retrocognitive memento. It's becoming steadily easier for me to imagine reality as a composite of overlapping possibilities -- a VR-like realm that creates itself from moment to moment rather than patiently awaiting discovery."

- Mac Tonnies, via this April, 2005 Posthuman Blues post

"It's intriguing how common 23 is among UFO sighting reports. (Reading Jacques Vallee's landmark "Anatomy of a Phenomenon," I was actually startled by the apparent correspondences, although Vallee seems not to have noticed.) One idea I've played with is that we're seeing a form of "compression artifact" that undermines the informational structure of spacetime. If so, who did the compressing? Do we live in a vast computer simulation?

Maybe unraveling the 23 Enigma is a way to alert -- or even communicate with -- the intelligence responsible for creating the universe; they/it might be interested in our deductive prowess . . . or maybe just looking for company."

- Mac Tonnies, via this February. 2007 Posthuman Blues post

(Note: for a previous PMB post about #23, featuring Robert Anton Wilson, try here.)

"Snowy Nude" - photo by Mac Tonnies - Uploaded to Flickr January, 2008

 I had reason to go into Mac's Flickr pages the other day, in the process of creating the little slide-show of his portraits that now appears on the side-bar. (Had I a size option with the Google gadget, the slide-show would've appeared much larger, and replaced the first photo. Not the case; but, I've uploaded the actual-size photos I used, onto this older post.)

It's weird, but whenever I go over to Mac's Flickr pages I seem to find something new... Then again, the mind is a strange thing; it focuses where it will without rhyme or reason, and tends to overlook loads of data that doesn't fit its criterion of the moment. There's hundreds of photos on Mac's photo-stream; tunnel vision might be a mental adaption we've designed to prevent ourselves from being overwhelmed.

I wasn't looking for it consciously, but Mac's photo, "Taking Flight" (above) just happened to fit a recent underlying agenda of mine. That is, I'm about to take an extended hiatus from the blogosphere. Not that I haven't put Post-Mac Blues into archival mode before - I have, a few times. But, I know well enough now, that it isn't over till it's over, and some shred of news will coax me back.

Then again, this blog is both a memorial and a time-capsule, so my continued presence has been hard-wired into place, but, the reality is, in the four years since Mac's passing, very little has really changed. It's as if the same news is being recycled over and over again. Whether the subject is Mars, the Singularity, UFOs, etc., one could go back into the Posthuman Blues back pages and find the same "news" five, six, or even seven years ago. "Global warming", for instance... or the theory of reality as a computer simulation (see this recent Aeon article), or better even, the "news" that Stephen Hawking is denouncing "black holes"*. Well, as it happens, Mac mentions just the same thing here and here on Posthuman Blues. No news (that is, speculation) is news again. And so it goes.

But, this is not to say that nothing new ever happens... new scientific inquiries continue to emerge quietly in the background, which may someday jump-start new paradigms. I'll leave you with this parting-shot: Do you feel immortal? Chances are you did when you were born. And, if this sort of thing interests you - and, if it doesn't, you're a fool - check out the Daily Grail's own Greg Taylor's latest: Stop Worrying! There Probably Is an Afterlife; chock-full of pertinent case-studies. Or, perhaps this article, sent to me via the Windbridge Institute yesterday.

"Far Above" - photo by Mac Tonnies - uploaded to Flickr August, 2008

In any case, if you want news, there are plenty of places online to find it; you can start at some places in the PMB links section. Speaking of which, as I've been tidying things up a bit before taking flight, I've been adding new links to the sidebar. Notably, in the aforementioned link section, a link from PMB reader, Joel, who informed me (via email) that a link on the PMB sidebar was broken. His site is Alien-UFO-Research, and if you haven't seen it before, check it out. I have another link, too; one that Mac sent me in an email shortly before his death, but I'd only rediscovered yesterday. As it's art-related it's going to appear on Trans-D (the other blog) (which, incidentally I'm archiving, too... and will, eventually, be dismantling altogether) but, I'll post it here as well. It's Synaptic Stimuli, the brainchild of Michael Chichi who apparently followed Mac on Twitter. He is also connected with this site. For an interview, see: Discussing Art and Aliens with Synaptic Stimuli's Michael Chichi.

Oh, and here's another bit of news, this blog is about to have a new URL. That is, "Araqinta" is a word which I may soon have use for in another capacity, so Post-Mac Blues is about to acquire the address it should've had from the beginning: Post-MacBlues.blogspot. This will happen shortly, but, don't worry, the current blog address will redirect you to the correct one for awhile. The only difference will be that I'm disabling the comment section. However, if there's a need to reach me, with Mac-related news, online material, or a heads-up on sidebar links that may be broken, feel free to contact me via the Araqinta email address at the bottom of the sidebar.

As for any future incarnation of Araqinta, well, I'm considering an actual .com with a venue for distribution of some of my work. If and when this occurs, I'll keep you posted. (Just in case you want your very own Crypto print on a vacant wall.)

Anyway, we live in interesting times. The trick is to not let "time" grind us down into so many disconnected kilobytes of virtual - and virtually - homeless, heartless particles.

Cheer up - this winter is coming to an end!

Peace out,
Dia



* Well, gee, but if there are no black holes, then WTF is this? I'm confused. But, I think I'll leave it to the cosmologists, physicists, and what have you, to duke it out. (Hat-tip to David Darling.)

Loving the Alien

An alien to love... Pitajia - photo by "Tauart".
(click to enlarge)

"To my surprise, all of the aliens were human-looking. Moreover, all were female and quite beautiful. They told me, via telepathy, that they reproduced through parthogenesis and that their typical lifespan was 5,000 years. Then they lectured me about global warming and stuck a suction cup-like device into my left nostril.

What a great time. Maybe they'll come back."

- Mac Tonnies via this September, 2005 Posthuman Blues post

"As I had suspected (and described in my account of my previous experience with the spacewomen), these space travelers adopt the anatomy of desirable female celebrities selected from television transmissions. In my case, the entire crew of aliens resembled either Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba or Natalie Portman. Interestingly, this distinction isn't frivolous or motivated by aesthetic sensibilities; the different personae are used both to help delegate responsibilities on board the ship (duties ranging from navigation to xenoforming) and to assist in their contacts with Earthlings (or "Terrans," as we're known among the spacewomen)."

- Mac Tonnies via this February, 2006 Posthuman Blues post

(For a footnote to the above article, see this 2006 PHB post)

"Before Boas was escorted off the "spaceship," the woman pointed significantly to her abdomen and in the direction of the sky. Advocates of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis have interpreted this as a reference to the woman's ET heritage, but at the same time they've effectively ignored the troublesome prospect of genetic compatibility. Granted that Boas had intercourse with an extraterrestrial, what are the chances that two independently evolved humanoid species could "mate" in any viable sense?

In "Revelations," Jacques Vallee compares the feasibility of conceiving a human-alien hybrid to that of a human attempting to breed with an insect. Certainly, if Boas encountered a genuine ET, then "they" have achieved a most remarkable degree of impersonation -- not an altogether impossible achievement for a civilization capable of traveling between stars but one that arouses substantial skepticism. The law of parsimony begs the speculation that the beings who abducted Boas were human in at least some essential respects."

- Mac Tonnies, via this January, 2009 Posthuman Blues post

Well, okay, the beautiful alien above does not resemble an insect - although something tells me that Mac would've preferred the wistful Pitajia anyway - but, if you insist upon seeing female insect hybrids - and Mac would've for sure - mysterious Russian photographer "Tau"
has an image of those as well... and several more gorgeous, unearthly girls, (including another shot of the lovely Pitajia).

While it's true that alien lovers are not a new development in pop culture, they do seem to have gained a lot of ground in recent years. I mean, it's not like one can go into a retail store, step up to the cosmetic counter and request a bottle of "Eau de Alien" or anything like that, but... oh, wait a minute, yes, you can!

A "Nordic" alien wench, surely...

Actually, that's how this post evolved. My star reporter, Dana Tonnies, wandered into a retail store recently - the kind where babes, armed with perfume bottles, spritz you to death as you walk by - and was offered a shot of something called "Alien Essence". So, I got on the case and, turns out, the full name of this little gem is "Alien Essence Absolue," one in a series of Alien scents designed by Thierry Mugler. Apparently, the bottle of this one was deliberately designed to resemble a woman's buttocks. So, I'm guessing this is a subliminal prompt for men to buy their GFs an expensive gift... (mostly 'cause something tells me that few women would grab a perfume bottle off the shelf because it looks like her, uh, hindquarters... except, maybe, Jennifer Lopez... who probably has hers insured).

These "intergalactic" purple bottles (an earlier version) are kind of cool though... 

Anyway, so, while on the case, I kept coming up with all these other aliens - a whole page of contemporary "alien" confections that I somehow missed the past few years... such as  "alien" Katie Perry from her 2011 ET video. (Oh, and before I forget, this just in from the Daily Grail: Katy Perry Believes In Aliens, Plans To Ask Obama About Them.)

And, here's another trendy page with a special bonus... and, trust me, boys, if you're feeling lonely, have they got a "love doll" for you: the "Area 51" edition! (Girls, take note: this makes a great "parting-shot" gift for the ex-BF you now despise.) (And, then again, let's not forget about "sexbots"!)

Yo Katie, take me to your hairdresser... seriously!

Speaking of love dolls, emphasis on the latter, you may be familiar with the name, Valeria Lukyanova, that Ukrainian model who, with the help of nature - and a surgeon - has managed to become a living doll. But, wait, it seems that Lukyanova has a higher purpose in life than you might expect. In fact, she has come to this planet to promote her alien spiritual values, and is spreading the word with a documentary: "Space Barbie"!  Apart from surreal, it's almost indescribable... where's Mac's interpretation when we need it?

(News flash: Space Barbie has a counterpart, Space Ken!)

Lastly, coming to a theater near you this year, is a film designed to get under your skin, in more ways than one... with an alien temptress who looks a lot like Scarlett Johansson in a black wig. Why, I'll be damned...

Beware, beware... your "nether regions" might be the preferred entry point for her form of brain surgery.
(Correction: make that "brain extraction"...)

...It is Scarlett Johansson in a black wig!

"Under the Skin," a film by noted filmmaker, Jonathan Glazer, and based on the novel by Michel Faber, already has its detractors, but, you be the judge: here's the trailer.

Then again, I'm nothing if not thorough, so allow me to leave you with "alien love" from a feminine perspective:

 'I have sex with aliens who sneak into my room at night': Psychic appears on live TV claiming to have 'out-of-this-world orgasms with octopus men and cat people'

Now there's an attention grabber... but, really, Octopus men?

PS  Hmmm... but, how about a hug from this Alien Girl?