Editorial notes: One of Shai’s special skills was writing short stories in a style used by famous authors. The two short stories below are a reflection of these attempts. The first written in the writing style of the American-British novelist and screenwriter, Raymond Chandler[I] and the second in the writing style of Jorge Luis Borges. Instant Noodles with Egg by Raymond Chandler The night...
[Fraudulent document? — Editor] Marcus Garvey’s diaries were amongst the improbable finds at Saddam Hussain’s ill-financed palaces. Their contents have always been overshadowed, by the incredible story of their theft and doctoring by the Church of Scientology away from the Catholic Church (who were hiding it from common knowledge). They describe a man who investigated other wisdoms...
Editorial notes: This post/story appears in two versions (see also Warm Rays in Cold Rooms (v1)) and it is not clear which one is the later or more up to date of the two, hence they are both published here. I was walking around the room, trying to focus on discovering new meanings between the storylines that were painted in items and their histories amidst history. I returned to sit on the bed...
Editorial notes: This essay/story appears in two versions (see also Warm Rays in Cold Rooms (v2)) and it is not clear which one is the later or more up-to-date of the two, hence they are both published here. After paying his respect to the anonymous pornstar, Professor Steven Stephenson, said, slurring his words [it was the one and only time I caught him blind drunk (nb. ethanol)], “I tried to...
Socrates and Leonard Cohen sit beneath an olive tree smoking opium from a Chinese pipe. Socrates: Gestures at black tar. Is this British? It has that tangy taste. LC: You know I don’t buy British. Both are silent as they mull over each other’s words. LC: You know I got fans. S: I got fans. LC: Yeah, but mine are alive. S: LC: Sometimes I think they want all my songs to be about sex, but I don’t...
In the middle of my life, I found myself adrift in elderly trails of an ancient forest. The forest was older than the fur and feathers that tossed and curled amongst its barks and tendrils. It was older even than the soil that was its current home. Once, long ago, it had been under the sea, composed of microbial blooms and an innovative evolutionary whirlwind. Forest Alone in the forest, lost...
Editorial notes: As noted in Shmoop, the title of this post is made in reference to a “line spoken by Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, in The Matrix, directed by Lilly and Lana Wachowski (1999). As part of his training as The One, Neo must learn all kinds of martial arts to fight the Agents, who work for the machines and keep the computer simulation known as the Matrix running. But instead of...
A man receives a vision in the psych ward that causes him to perceive his own life in its terms. *foreshadowing* [The rest was added much later. That line was an idea I once had for a story about a man who is studying history and a crime that occurred in the past, when his (original idea was for neural disease/cancer) delusions overlap his life with the past, and he discovers that he was the...
It is oft-repeated that Buddhism is not a religion, but rather a pragmatic psychology – it is quite here that the controversy within Scientology found its ground-swell, ensuring that the archaeological finds be immune to apathetic amnesia. Professor Chowdhury and three graduate students were completing work at a monastic complex in northern India when a hermetically sealed cave was...
Editorial notes: These reflections are about the quest to find underlying enduring meaning in the transitory experiences and events that make up our lives and constitute our world. It suggests that there is no such underlying enduring meaning, at least none accessible to us. But there can be crucial turning points in which we are surprised by experiences that transcend what we thought were the...
