10 August 2013

Notes - while blind no less / The Dead 21 completed / prelim. for Brothers 21


        1037 hours. I found a good word online this morning; one I have not seen or used too often, if ever: ratiocination  (ratēˈōsəˈnāSHən). I like the word, even the pronunciation, as it is different than I would have suspected.

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Noun
conclusion, ratiocination - the proposition arrived at by logical reasoning (such as the proposition that must follow from the major and minor premises of a syllogism))

ratiocination (logical and methodical reasoning)

Adapted from - wordnetweb/princeton/edu

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         According to Merriam-Webster the synonyms for ratiocination are:  intellection, logic, reason, reasoning, [and] sense. I like the word and at times wish I could live by it, but in doing so a part of my humanity would be missing. This brings me to Milton as I think he would have reveled in the word because, at least to me, the word is an embodiment of an angelic-like being, a being that when appearing to look directly at you is actually looking through you almost as if you aren't there at all. That is my sense of the circumstance.

         You are thinking of The Angels and Us by Mortimer J. Adler.

         Mortimer J. Adler was Chairman of the Board of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Director of the Institute of Philosophical Research and Honorary Trustee of the Aspen Institute. He authored fifty books. He lived in Chicago. [From book cover] I met him once when he gave a talk in Cincinnati. He is the only 'real-to-me' philosopher I ever met live. I liked his manner and demeanor as well as his intelligent use of diction and reason. Below is a book description copied from Amazon.

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Book Description
Publication Date: March 1, 1982

Mortimer Adler has always been ahead of his time. In 1982, before the current revival of interest in angels, Dr. Adler published "The Angels and Us", an engaging look at the various images and hierarchies of angels (including guardian angels).  Dr. Adler, the bestselling author of "Ten Philosophical Mistakes",  "Aristotle for Everybody: and "The Great Ideas", speculates on the existence of angels; why Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in angels, and the ways angels have been viewed as objects of religious belief and philosophical thought. This is a wonderfully enlightening work on the affinities between angels and human beings.

 [From the Paperback edition]
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         1111 hours. This is strange to have come into my head this morning. I was thinking of John Milton's angels of course, not angels in general. I have such admiration for John Milton to have written Paradise Lost as he did, while blind no less.

         It is your all time favorite literary work, heartansoulanmind. - Amorella

         Why is that, Amorella? It was such in college when I first read the whole of it and earlier even in high school the excerpts in the British literature text were intriguing. I always wanted to make a connection with aliens (if there were any) with angels. Wishful thinking, I would imagine.

         No, boy. You are wrong; the earliest connection that I see in here is with Ezekiel and the wheel. - Amorella

         You are right. I had not thought on that.

         Post. - Amorella


         1436 hours. Feeling much better since the stomach problems have disappeared (at least for the time being). We had a late Subway picnic down along a Little Miami canoe livery area near old Fosters [Crossing].


         Carol is on page 383 of The Columbus Affair and you are ready to continue Dead 21. - Amorella


         1653 hours. I am about 740 words and interestingly satisfied with Dead 21, but I have no actually ending of the Second Rebellion. I believe you said it was after the first series of books was completed, but I do not know a time, a date of reference.

         Chose an arbitrary date, boy, and we will see what we have. - Amorella

         1 March 2010.

         On this human oriented date the Grand Compromise between the Dead of two species and the Supervisor was initiated. - Amorella

         1713 hours. I have completed The Dead 21.

         This will do for now. You have a lawn to mow. Add and post. - Amorella

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The Dead 21 ©2013, rho, drafting for GMG, vol. 1

            Merlyn awoke from stone thinking, the Living do not understand how the Second Rebellion began when it did let alone how it ended, he thought. How do I best explain these unseen and thus unknown events to the Living?
            In short order Merlyn had rolled his spectral eyes back into his spectral head to discover he was about to have a discussion with Glevema and Panagiotakis right in his own sanctuary. Within from the door way to his hut Merlyn saw the oak billiard table rise from the stone boulder just as he had risen from the stony sleep of the Dead. Merlyn moved, gaining confidence as he glanced down from the height of the giant oak to the table below to see two balls, each on a cue mark, and an oak cue stick lying on the table green near the white cue ball and on the other cue mark the black 8 ball. Merlyn blinked. I am the stick, Takis is the white and Mother is the 8 ball. The pockets shift. One pocket connects to the heart, another to the soul, and a third to the mind; the other three are random existential nightmares. My cue tip needs to strike old Takis and send him to lightly kiss Mother and send her towards the far right corner, estimated Merlyn. Then, before I ask my question I must strike with the cue ball and drive her into her most focused heartansoulanmind corner of the moment. I can only hope to drive her into heart's pocket for a truthfully honest response.
            Semi-conscious of the timing Merlyn struck the cue ball, which, as the physics would have it, tapped the 8 ball a bit further and harder to the left side of the ball than he had anticipated. The white ball rolled to the left and almost scratched in the far corner pocket, and in Merlyn's mind the 8 ball unfolded an almost unlikely destined path to the left corner pocket and dropped in. 'Not good,' concluded Merlyn, 'A faery's trick,' added his struck heart.
            His understood questions on the Second Rebellion had drilled into Mother's soul and into his heart instead. "I should have stopped with Takis," grumbled Merlyn, "I should have let the cue ball run the table."  
            The Victorian styled oak billiard table collaborated into mist and sunk into the stone bolder. Merlyn stood alone with Mother three arm's length away, boldly staring at him, as almost all mothers are wont to do with a naughty child near hand.
             "Do you think I did not see through your tactics to use my grandfather to soften my soul?"
            "I was aiming at your heart, dear Mother of all mothers. I see I missed my mark."
            The soul tends to show an armor of indifference, thought Mother while considering a response to Merlyn's initial question. "Nuclear weaponry," declared Mother, and all those dead from murdering in political conflicts and two major wars during the first half of the twentieth century. Even my first friends among the Dead, the marsupial humanoid Dead pleaded for a short-ordered Second Rebellion to address the parental anxieties of both species for their living children."
            "The Living do not know about the marsupial humanoids other than my fictional stories, Mother. How do I turn this into story form?"
            "You were sorted out, Merlyn. I assume you are up to the job," replied Mother rather huffily. "Once the marsupial humanoids actually landed on Earth and tragically died in secret attempt to present themselves in July, 1947; their Dead decided it was time to re-introduce themselves to Mother. The reasonableness of Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech became the trigger -- the madness of a world of industrial-military complexes would eventually create a horrific global social circumstance in which humanity both collectively and individually would have no choice but to shut itself off soulanmind-wise, Merlyn. This is something you can certainly understand and sell to the Living; individual and collective humanity essentially becoming a closed camp within, the breadth of the human heart struck with the cryptic thought that work alone can make you free." She paused to let this sink in, and then added, "Merlyn, how would we many Dead grow and flourish under such heartless conditions of power and consequence?
            Subdued or not, a reckoning would come, ruminated Merlyn, as surely as I one of the Dead, walk with or without consequence among those presently Living. The Second Rebellion ended while I have been here, in two places at once, among the Living and among the Dead. Even I do not know how or why this came to be. But who really knows the how's and why's of any rebellions or wars. Freedom, what is freedom without the fullness of one's heartansoulanmind?

793 words
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         2042 hours. We had Papa John's pizza for supper, two slices each, half veggie, half works. Homer and his crew are awesome pizza makers. The second half nuked tomorrow will taste as good as it tasted right out of the oven. We watched ABC then NBC News and an old "Zero Hour", we have five or six more episodes to catch up until the final for the season, which was on for two hours last Saturday. We have nothing more tonight. Carol is going to read on her book and I am going to write or listen to relaxing music.

         Are you ready to begin The Brothers 21? - Amorella
        
         I am intrigued. I am still in surprise over Dead 21. Never in a million years would I have considered such a narrative. It does have a dramatic finish, at least to me, and from my perspective the last sentence is true, no matter it is built into fiction. "Freedom, what is freedom without the fullness of one's heartansoulanmind? There is a greater unified clarity with the three-words-in-one over the seemingly (to me) nearly unmanageable clutter of three separate nouns. Is this the discussion in Brothers 21?

         No, it is not. - Amorella

         I copied The Brothers 21 from Braided Dreams. It is about 2900 words long, some of which is their chess game. Should I go through and begin whittling down to the 750 word range?

         Yes, it will be constructive even if none of it is used. Post. - Amorella
        
         I agree, it will be constructive, because used or not I am curious as to how this segment is going to be after the lead in with Dead 21. (2119)    

         2149 hours. I cut Brothers 21 down to 873 words. Time for bed. 


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