Ken Kesey Wisdom

Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.

You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.

Take what you can use and let the rest go by.

To hell with facts! We need stories!

People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.

The trouble with super heroes is what to do between phone booths.

Ken, on a bus trip heading east, stopped in Yellowstone and saw a sign that said "Beware of Bear" and said : This used to mean be aware of the bear. But now, it means "be afraid of the bear."

Of offering more than what I can deliver,

I have a bad habit, it is true.
But I have to offer more than I can deliver,
To be able to deliver what I do.

Always stay in your own movie.

You're either on the bus or off the bus.

... you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

When Shakespeare was writing, he wasn't writing for stuff to lie on the page; it was supposed to get up and move around.

To hell with facts! We need stories!

Good writin' ain't necessarily good readin'. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

The frontiers we broke into in the '60s are still largely unexplored.

When you're around the whole Dead scene, they're there as a tribal thing; they're there as part of a rendezvous and a pow-wow.

The truth doesn't have to do with cruelty, the truth has to do with mercy.

Leary can get a part of my mind that's kind of rusted shut grinding again, just by being around him and talking.

The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental.

He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.

Nowhere else in history has there ever been a flag that stands for the right to burn itself. This is the fractal of our flag. It stands for the right to destroy itself.

You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine; otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you.

Listen, wait, and be patient. Every shaman knows you have to deal with the fire that's in your audience's eye.

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Video: The Art of Joe Coleman

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Poem: A flight of swallows

by Jack Brummet

A flight of swallows
Spins outside the window.

One by one,
Stars turn on

And the yellow sun
Cycles to dusty rose

As it sinks
To the other side.

The moon's in tune,
Stars turn on

And clouds drape themselves
Across the sky.

In the web
Of the Milky Way we careen

Through space, twirling on earth's axis,
Around the sun, and into the black.
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A load of ca-ca in Germany

BERLIN (Associated Press story):

"One can only imagine the expletives uttered by a Bavarian driver and his teenage daughter after a farmer accidentally filled their convertible with a trailer full of manure. German police say the incident happened Saturday near the town of Altomuenster, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) northwest of Munich.

"The 52-year-old father and his 14-year-old daughter were parked by the roadside when a tractor pulling a trailer of liquid manure swung in their direction. The maneuver sent the entire load pouring into their Renault convertible, covering the occupants from head to toe with slurry.

"In a statement Monday, police said the car is likely a write-off. On the upside, they noted: "nobody was injured."

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Reactions from China to Donald Trump

How the news President Trump won't label China a currency manipulator plays in China:

• "Eating his words!"
• "Trump slaps self in face, again"

    

Drawing: Faces 1933 — Conversion therapy orientation

By Jack Brumet

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Poem: [Let the blue turtle go]

By Jack Brummet

Let the blue turtle go

Train your eyes
Like a bobcat

Leave the knife beneath your cloak
Let things pass
Because all things must pass

Awareness of danger

Brings fortune

As you cross the cold cold sea

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What the night sky will look like in five million years

ESA’s Gaia mission's scientists created this simulated animation of how the Milky Way will evolve over the next 5 million years.

Via Kottke.org:

"Stars in the Galactic Plane move quite slow and faster ones appear over the entire frame. This is a perspective effect: most of the stars we see in the plane are much farther from us, and thus seem to be moving slower than the nearby stars, which are visible across the entire sky."

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The Slender Thread movie with Anne Bancroft and Sidney Poitier

By Jack Brummet

We have an annual screening of the film The Slender Thread at the Crisis Clinic, and I finally made it for the showing tonight. It is a pretty amazing movie on a topic (suicide) that was not really talked about in the 60s. Or the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and even now. Anne Bancroft, Telly Savalas (and his brother George), Sidney Poitier, and Ed Asher are the lead actors. Bancroft and Poitier—the suicidal woman and the phone worker—are the focal points of the story. A lot of it is outdated and nothing like how we work now, but it is still fascinating and touching if you have ever done this kind of work. The movie, directed by Sydney Pollack, was based on the Seattle Crisis Clinic, which was one of the first hotlines in the country.

I worked on a crisis line in 1971-72, and the movie is pretty realistic about that era. We were flying by the seat of our pants, without a lot of professional help from shrinks/MSWs, etc. When I returned to this work a couple years ago, it was much more buttoned-down and professional (and effective). When I was on the Kent crisis line, we had four hours of training provided by the Seattle Crisis Clinic (where I work now): two hours on active listening and communications skills and two hours on suicide work. The next time around, it was 80 hours of training, with four days of in-service training each year, and continual ad hoc feedback on your work.

As corny as it was at times, the movie was moving. They got a lot of it right, which, for Hollywood, is pretty good. It's an almost noir looking black and white movie with footage (including aerial) of 1960's Seattle. Another reason this really hit home was that the woman committing suicide lived a few blocks from us in Ballard, and a lot of key moments occurred at Golden Gardens, just down the hill from my house.

I don't know if it is available streaming, but the DVD is for sale on Amazon.

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The smell of books ("Smell of heritage: a framework for the identification, analysis and archival of historic odours")

If you're a "bookie," you'll love this scholarly article on the smell of books by Cecilia Bembibre and Matija Strlič. The chart of smells is fantastic. The article appears here.

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Drawing: Faces No. 1932 — NSA Trajectory and Ballistics Analysts

By Jack Brummet

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Sean Spicer's latest flub

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