‘A Scanner Darkly’

By Phillip Dick, an SF Masterwork published in 1999, original from 1977

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly

Wrote this post three years ago:

“She risked her masked-up health and went into her new favorite library, St Vinnies—an Op Shop, charity or opportunity store—and “borrowed” eight old-fashioned print books. This because the local library was shut for Christmas-and-New-Year and the local virtual library not listening to her passwords, library id or pins.

“On arriving home, she began reading Phillip K Dick’s A Scanner Darkly. Not wanting to stop for lunch she got a bottle of water, and a jar of Pano dark choc bits. Ate the latter and drank the former while continuing to read. Round about 4.30 PM, she remembered the not-getting-sick parameter, and drank more water before making and eating a peanut butter sandwich with blueberries.

“Though the read was not all that gripping, she’d decided to read it, so read it she would. If that makes sense. The title, which an FB friend was attracted to after the crone posted a pic of a bag full of reading matter, sounds like a take on ‘through a glass darkly’ … let me just check that …

“OMG! yourbibleversedaily dot com tells her: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. – 1 Corinthians 13:12. Paul’s famously poetic statement about the difficulty of knowing God in this life says a lot more than at first meets the eye.”

“Well, it tells her it’s definitely worth it to check references, sometimes only vaguely known. What she has read so far of Through a Scanner Darkly … Yep, yep, definitely shaping up … to Augustine’s interpretation: “For Augustine, we see the image of ourselves clearly, but, as a reflection of God, the image is an imperfect way of gazing upon God.”

“All she can think is, that poor sap. (Thinking about A Scanner Darkly’s MC now.) He thinks he’s on top of what he’s trying to do but of course he will come a cropper. I wouldn’t be surprised, she thinks, if there’s a proper death at the end, not just the split-brain drug-addled undeath.
So. She’ll keep reading. [Posted 22 Dec 2021]

This is me, here and now, two and a half years on. Apparently I did blog this at the time but I can’t somehow deliver the image. As you’ll have noticed this isn’t a book review but another post about blogging. What a supposed ‘seamless transfer’ looks like on the ground. When advertising gurus talk about seamless transfers they don’t take into account the oceanic number of input/output skills out there/here or the infinite gradations of computer use competence.

I know that though I’ve been using computers for 28+/- years, my skill set is highly idiosyncratic, as is that of everyone else who was self-taught. And I believe the majority of us are, aren’t we?

I had three options of delivering that pic and none worked so far. My Media Library has about 800 images in it, but not apparently the cover of the novel I was writing about. I did a Search and got a virtual copy. The result of that maneuver is at the top. No image that I can see. And if it does appear in the post between the time I hit the Publish button and you read it, it’ll be the old pic. Not the Blue green and yellow version gracing the Masterwork.

Or I could take a photo of the print version I have, email it to myself and download it. That hasn’t worked either. So far. Google for some reason has retrieved an email address I left in the dust six years ago.

My Google ID is my next job.

Stuck!

I am stuck between a rock and a hard place Americans might say. Old Americans, probably. I don’t know if that aphorism is still being used.

I am stuck between my old Mac, with an old copy of Microsoft Word that I’m perfectly happy with, and new Mac with a so-far unlicensed Microsoft Word 365 that has frozen several of my Files. I haven’t been asked did I want the new version and I definitely haven’t agreed to hosting it on my computer.

Of course I know it’s probably some handshake agreement between Apple and Microsoft, they thinking that because a person purchases an Apple laptop they will naturally want also to purchase a gazillion MB word processor suite with no questions asked.

It’s here and it’s freezing my work as if it owns my output. That fact already is making me dig my heels in. My files, on my computer–not even online– frozen on the say-so of a company too big for its boots? Ee-ee-eh! That’s me screaming, frustrated already.

I can’t post either Brick Stories or Lodestar as my files are stuck in Word-ruled limbo for some so-far unidentified reason, and it’s ironic because the only thing I use Word for is to turn screeds into PDFs, as I generally use Scrivener for first and second drafts. So I really really resent having to purchase a huge program, either on a monthly basis at $11 US ad infinitum, or outright for over $200 US … just to free my work!

I can’t even copy and paste into a another program. And this is immediately after I proved I’m human. This is the material I personally wrote, for pity’s sake!

Just had a call from BH who suggested I check out Acrobat Reader. Good idea. I will. But first Scrivener. Surely it has the capability to PDF? Sounds like a dance. It’s all I need a couple of steps here, then there.

Found it. Scrivener dances the PDF.

Goodbye, Microsoft.

Solar Power Generation …

Saw this from the side balcony …

Just seeing someone take advantage of the intermittent sun shining makes me feel good. Then I wonder why they are the only ones?

Blogging: ‘On the Edge’

This is the post where I learn to embed a video clip …

I started with a sentence intro’ing my post. ‘Stumbled across this video clip entirely serendipitously just after realizing I’m no longer living on a knife edge between two dramas.’

Intended to embed without a drama. The instructions are clear, can I follow directions finally?

I followed the directions and pasted a link to the content I wanted to embed. I clicked on the button EMBED. It tells me to paste an URL. Huh? Where? Like, the box where is filled with the link?

I click on ‘Learn more about embeds’ and I’m told everything I already know and that I have already done.

No. Wait … scrolling further down I learn that I need to paste in the URL which acts as a link. Never mind FB telling me to do it the other way round. I’ll give the WP way another go.

So I paste the URL.

I get a tell … ‘Sorry this content could not be embedded.’ And two blue boxes with ‘Try again.’ and ‘Convert to link.’

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2462779200599055

But. In actual fact. Checking the post I see that I have a LINK where I had expected an EMBED.

LOL, topping Everest!

Not the one I wanted of a couple of climbers negotiating an edge.

Back to the drawing board

Meditative Art

Life has been challenging over this past week. Sometimes things happen that are difficult, if not impossible, to process. Such has been our …
Meditative Art

This post by Judith on https://artistcoveries.wordpress.com/ was a serendipitous find for me when I was casting about for a distraction from the on-going disaster that is the world out there. I had already weakened and thrown a train of the ongoing grief onto the page (previous post) when I recalled how soothing painting can be and thought that I should get back to it.

There’s nothing I can do about the ongoing train-wreck but keep myself sane and … I just don’t know what we as individuals can do.

Painting these miniatures my whole attention needs to go into every step of the process. They offer me three stages … I sketch, trace the important lines with black waterproof, and I paint. Six miniatures per A4 page, with two more to serve as a front door into the space and backdoor, or gate, out of the space.

Unfinished sketch of a corner of a living room. A few more elements before I can call it done. the flowers need a touch of color, for example. And so do the bricks in the fireplace. 10 x 9.5 cm or 4 x 3.7 inches.

Before I put pen to paper I need to set the scheme out, and it’s easy to make a mistake. As I did with this series. To put the booklet together with the least number of cuts and gluing, the six inner elements need to be positioned facing upward, facing downward, facing upward. That didn’t happen here:

… and I will need to do more cutting and more gluing to get a successful outcome. My fingers are crossed.

It’s Hard Work …

It’s hard work to stay well to say hi you good couple more days and I’ll be well again hard work to talk hard to live as if hoping is still worthwhile work. For my childrens children. And for all children

It’s hard work to hope with the deluge reaching and over-reaching and we’re all still standing in the ankle-deep sludge downstream, arguing.

So much oil under the bridge, so much coal floating downstream, so many poisons soaking into our soils no it’s all good we can make it tech will save us

So much worry, words words words, worry beads and plastic bangles plastic nodules. Nerdles accreting barnacles as they float wither weather wind-driven across an ocean of plastic film and ghosts of sea life

So many islands shores coasts mangroves maldives rocks and reefs atolls and bird sanctuaries buried

So much delay anxiety about the future deaths of children bombings wars steel splinters and torn molten metals looping and lunging

So many floaters that the dead shoal under the bridge where finally the ocean receives us and our molecules and receives our ashes and our atoms

The ocean? No more than an elemental soup

But our souls? Where will theywe rest?

Is there a purgatory wide deep aeonic enough to gather us all in to stew gestate lumpify petrify turn us into crystals of negated promise?

You see why it’s difficult to decide to be well?

Why it’s difficult to want to turn up? To say hi with a smiling face, make bright talk, a cheery welcome?

The ‘Dikke Koek’ Pan

So called in my birth family. A wedding present to my parents, it’s been in use, mostly, for more than three quarters of a century. I may have had it sitting decoratively on a shelf for a few years but is now back in almost daily use.

And still going strong, though the enamel is a bit worn at the edges. I trust this eroding enamel on cast iron a lot more than eroding teflon and modern stone wear.

I do stir fries in it, and also fry-ups which are a more elemental and robust fare than the meticulously sliced and diced former dish.

For a fry-up I like to start with a tablespoon of oil. Throw in roughly diced cooked chicken, precooked sausage or other meat, about a tablespoon’s worth per person. Fry till meat starts to get brown. Add in about the same amount of diced capsicum. Give the mass a bit of a stir.

People not on a low FODMAP diet might’ve started with onion and garlic. But next in for me are a few tablespoons of cooked rice, or cooked pasta, or a root vegetable. I’ll hold back the carbohydrates if I’m having this on toast.

Pile the pan full of washed and dried green leaves … I use half a bag of prewashed three leaf salad from the supermarket … and stir to melt down. Break an egg over the pan and half stir that goodness in too. ( Yes! Discard the eggshell!)

Empty into a bowl or on toast on a plate. Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

The ‘Dikke Koek’ of the title is something else entirely. if you know any Dutch or Afrikaans you’ll know already that Dikke means thick or fat, and koek means cake.

If you were going to say koek means biscuit or cookie … they are brothers and sisters of the same ilk. Baked goeds. Koek.

Dikke koek was a favourite birthday dinner dessert.

The savoury part of such a dinner often consisted of capucijners—in English known as marrowfats or grey peas—with bacon/spek, a green salad, fried potatoes and appelmoes (smashed apples). Yum!

You’d hardly think that after a first course as sturdy as that, anyone would still be able to fit in a serve of dikke koek met cinnamon sauce! But, you know, teenagers? They have hollow legs.

In the years when these birthday meals were cooked there would often be three teenagers at the table, plus an equal number of slightly younger kids.

Dikke koek is an old recipe—I’ll be very surprised to learn whether people in the Netherlands still eat it. Its formal name in the cookbook we get it from (published in 1939) is ‘broeder’… Why? A mystery to me.

The cookbook was my mother’s home economics textbook in secondary school.