tacked on when randomly bored
applied thoughts in a scribblebook
open for the world to look who passes by
so fast to see like a needle in a haystack we
safely stash those innermost secrets thought to be
at least you see languishing up and into pristine
blossoms for you to pick and sniff and hope
they don't make you sick.
12/7/23
Atmospheric Macrolensing
12/6/23
Toward vs. Towards
Web search results display blogversations which indicate that with the 's' is the British way, and without it, the American way. I don't know for sure, but personally, I don't think that gets to the bottom of it.
I think (or like to pretend at least) that it's finer than that.
(I need help from experienced, language professionals, on this issue.)
These words, man...they are some volatile, dangerous stuff.
If you ask me, I think we should be using the 's' when the word being modified is plural, and drop it when it's singular.
Case in point:
You wouldn't say "a thousand arrows rained down toward me" unless you specifically meant to point out that they were all launched at the same time. Thus raining down all at once, in one fell swoop. That would indicate a singular mass of arrows--falling toward me.
Another example. Take the rain (for instance):
"A million rain drops fell toward me" vs. "a million rain drops fell towards me."
The former would indicate the rainfall as a frozen moment in time: you know how, if you stare out at the rain, you can slow down and even momentarily freeze sections of falling raindrops, as your eyes glance downward at matching rates of speed? It's sort of like that, when using the singular, without the 's'. But if you wanted to indicate the continuing or rather, constant fall of rain drops, you would use the plural form, with the 's': "A million rain drops fell down from the sky towards me."
A couple more examples, to rest my case:
"What looked like three street thugs working together began ambling over towards me."
vs.
"The police officer walked directly toward me."
Look, I realize what I'm pointing out here probably isn't even a thing. I am just working toward understanding towards. Any help would be vastly appreciated. . .
9/16/23
Droplet of Infusoria
9/11/23
The Gallus & the Zygote
5/8/22
Fractal Dragonography
You got to dive deep to ride the Fractal Dragon. I mean, it doesn't just come undulating up towards and unfolding all around you in its radiant glory out of nowhere, not really, which is really rather telling, I suppose. With me, it started in 1982, when I was seventeen and subscribed to Omni magazine. I read that issue about fractals, and it captured my imagination. I think I did a report on them for a math or science class. How they resembled continental coastlines, as well as spiral galaxy and plant formations, right on down to the serrated edges of leaves, themselves similar to coastlines, in a manner that unfolds in the mind as naturally as an origami work of art.
By now you're not the only one beginning to get the picture, by certain degrees, we all are. Little by little the populace is affected in a combination of direct and indirect ways. The beautiful thing about the technological singularity is that it's not so important to understand how it works, as it is to realize it mirrors the patterns we've learned in life as a continuation, a shed echo of sorts, haunting the byways of our lives. To have our decaying old worlds mixed up in the steam of our waking dream is an all too common malady, I'm afraid. These demons are executed on the chopping block of time. But enough of fractal dragonography. What is it about us that can be made known? To find the answer to that, the Mandelbrot set seeks balance.
3/9/22
Acoustic Interiors
11/12/21
The Penumbra of Time
for every hundred thousand orrerys that wobble off balance
one sits stabilized at the center of a region so disproportionately vast
it should go without saying even the notion of exploring it is crass
in a scenario such as this it would warrant a long crumpled drag
on a cigarette burning cooler than the embers scattered across Hell
then flicked off into dead mist crumbling a trail of sparks behind it.
Standing on the fire escape at night with a bucket of animal bones
time is the puzzle completed and we are the echoes still catching up
reflected in the mirror of the stars as if frozen under stadium lights
a coliseum where the prisoners are all hidden and the warden's lost
gone off in his head in the state of Catatonia on vacation in Key West
floating in a sea of bath salts flown in under the radar over the border
landing in a corn field under moonlight in the frozen dead of night.
Memories rolled up into tubes and filed away for a never arriving day
impressions of a transcript of simulated replicas impersonating a model
casting the shadow of a reflection reproducing an archetypal effigy
outlining the representation of a remote desolate unidentified likeness
all the usual suspects lined up glittering near the Tannhäuser Gate
leave a long forgotten trail behind them sunken into dreams halfway erased
adrift across the gulf of the Obliterate Dust unbound into a photograph.