(no subject)

Well that was weird. After managing no sleep, I got up to write a poem. Two hours it took me to draft and then I accidentally deleted the whole thing by mistake. I have an overworked version. Too irritated to look at it.

But at least then I could sleep, to face very strange dreams, straight out of some pulp sci-fi/fantasy movie

A scroll or papyrus of some kind, a pictogrammatic language depicted, one pictogram repeated over and over again. The whole thing resembled ancient Egyptian, but this one sigil or sign was different. It was coloured in for a start, with bright blues, reds and yellows, and its lines were thicker, more fluid, something like a cross between an aztec symbol and a cartouche. There were elements of it that looked vaguely skull like but with flowing blues that emerged from its head and curled around it. I studied it a lot.

IA was there too (why? Looking at the date this morning I realise it was his birthday yesterday. My subconscious has a far better memory than I do) he had interpreted this sign, but there was something slightly off about his interpretation. My own interpretation was also incomplete; from what I could make out, this thing was some sort of alien influence that had landed very close by, a couple of fields away. It had been to Earth before, it was known in Egypt. It was tremendously malign, but I could not find the words to express its danger, whether it killed people or made people kill each other. I knew that the immediate answer was to get the hell away from it, but that was not so easy to do. It could over-run very quickly.

So I guess this could be some sort of Covid-19 parallel thing, though why Egypt has anything to do with it is beyond me - subconscious thoughts of the plague maybe? Also, in no part of my conscious mind do I label a disease 'evil.' A virus does what most life forms do, it survives, sustains itself, reproduces. It is a lamentable thing when it brings us harm or grief, but that's not evil. Evil has intent. Also, I am always amused by the enemy from outer space, because to me there is no great danger from the outside. There's difference, there's that which we can't control, but I quite like the first and don't worry about the second. We're the adversary, not some alien or disease, not some cloven hoofed cartoon. So I am surprised that this imagery has arisen in this form. Of course, perhaps it's no surprise that it happened on 7/7 either, remembering London. Whatever else that complex symbol meant, its primary definition in my head must be inimical, malefic, enemy on the move warning stuff.

Or maybe the full moon just blasted my brains to cheese last night.

Meanwhile

No.

https://www.gudrunsjoden.com/en-gb/clothes/dresses-tunics-kaftans/product-101800-powder-pink-s

I so want to like Gudrun Sjoden's stuff, all bright and scandi and organic and happy. But no.

Chomsky and free speech

And here we go.

Noam Chomsky joins others in a letter regarding free debate, and much squeaking follows after.

Cancel culture means very little to me. It may be because I can separate art from artist, because if I couldn't, my childhood library would have been about three books long. I grew up reading all sorts of authors, including those who didn't like women, wrote in a time that didn't like women, published in an industry that didn't like women, through ages when all industries, even those focused on woman, didn't like women. If I didn't read anything by misogynists or those who benefitted/flourished within a misogynistic society, I'd have less literature, much less science fiction and fantasy, and almost no history.

The truth is that sometimes bad people have great talent. The way to show disapproval is not to buy their products, to my mind the best form of action. It won't stop their work having quality, but an adult should be able to accept that. Having talent and craft doesn't mean the author is good, admitting the presence of talent doesn't mean an endorsement of their values.

But silencing people? Co-ercing their language, their expression, to fit with one's own? This is no better than Mary Whitehouse, than the Movie Production Code, or the Comics Code Authority... It leads to new forms of McCarthyism, and builds a sturdy platform for totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.

Chomsky's getting a drubbing on twitter now. Apparently he is a holocaust denier, as opposed to someone saying that to deny the holocaust, however repugnant and disgusting a point of view, is an act of free speech. As he's Jewish, brought up with and surrounded by Jewish left wing intellectuals, and having faced considerable anti-semitism in his youth, the claim that he himself is a holocaust denier is at once hysterical and horrible. I have not found evidence that there is any truth in it.

"Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.” - Noam Chomsky