"Electric Sheep, Spiders, and Kraken Conscious..."

"A thread of thought
Developed from discussions on 'The Dome'

A Word of thanks to:
The Originator of this website...
Otherwise known as... mistandfog:

Thanks for your kind comments, and particularly for all the hard work you put in, mistandfog!

Mellow Season...

Fog and mist
Sun-kissed
September morning
Feeling blissed

Webs like jewels
dance in hedges,
rainbow necklace
at their edges

Bosom friend
from Sun's heart
demonstrating
cyber-art

A friend indeed,
what we all need...
Dear mistandfog,
Take Heed!

copyright Jane Johnson September 2000
(Apologies to Keats)

'Kraken Conscious'
(from John Wyndham's 'The Kraken Wakes)

All year I have had a computer, but just as I had to send it to the computer hospital for repair and upgrade (my music files weren't working and I ran out of room on the hard drive, which made it all too slow...) ...You all go and have a Poetry Day in the UK - While I wasn't looking! Hurrumph! Well, I shall stick to prose for a while, in prose-test (oh, groan!)

But all the same, it's great to be back. It took about six hours non-stop tinkering to get a dial-up connection as my new Diminutive Kraken (I have to stop this - although I call my new computer this in recognition of the apparent phenomenon of artificial intelligence everywhere becoming alive and conscious). In fact, the Kraken (the nickname derives from John Wyndham's story) - is not just a monster from the deeps... It's an extension from my own brain! Due to some logic of its own, however, it has now failed to recognise the modem...

It turns out it was (literally) the 'ghost' in the machine - I'd had my old drive copied into this one with a program called Ghost - and being literally minded (as opposed to literary minded) it managed to copy the ghost of my old modem - attributing it to the same port as the new one. Thereby developed a conflict of interests.

'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'
(Stanley Kubrick)

Now there's an interesting idea - I wonder how many of our apparent conflicts of interests are really caused by the real interest being obscured by the ghost of another - a faded memory of having once found something to be important which no longer is, yet it succeeds in obliterating the importance of what is presently essential... Let's consider... How about outmoded, fond and (inaccurate) memories of past love affairs preventing us from taking the plunge? (Or fearful ones!)

... What about nostalgic associations with old holiday venues reminding us of never-to-be-repeated times with our children or other loved ones, preventing us from exploring pastures new? Then there are the Christmas card lists as long as your arm to people we hardly know and never see, who are 'on the list' - and the time taken to plough through them makes us tired, crochety, and just a little jaded before the gathering of friends and families, the lost and lonely around us, sharing the magical season celebrating the miracle of Love?

The ghosts are only too happy to be released from the associations of those who hold them back - more stuff to send a chill...

In Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" we are introduced to Ghosts as prisoners of Time - and in many cases it is an inappropriately delayed spiritual presence that gives rise to the idea of ghosts at all. Many years ago I knew a couple who had been in the basement flat of a Victorian House in Brighton for over ten years. They were desperate to move, but whenever they got anywhere near it something always happened to hold them back. This intrigued me, so I decided to spend a little 'trance' time in their home.

It soon became apparent that the shades of a busy kitchen and scullery of a much larger town house were still in occupation - there had been some sort of epidemic, and the little household of hustle and bustle had been their entire world. There were so many shadows, each was a link to the others, making it harder than ever for any to escape to the formless, selfless, state where they could once again be reunited with the Beloved and prepared for the Afterlife they deserved. Once aware of this I performed a little ceremony releasing them from the bondage of servitude, exhorting them to find the Rest and Peace of God. Shortly after that my friends were offered another flat. Funnily enough, it was on the other side of the road...

'Virulence, viruses, and viagra...'
(How to demoralise your man...)

Fortunately for me, (and unhappily for Suzzie, the 'Dome's' webmaster, who apparently didn't) I managed to get off lightly with the floating 'virus' thingy - - As I no longer smoke, and spend time out at college in the daytime - and in order to avoid worsening my asthma I know how to dose myself with steroids as soon as my mucosa start to dissolve - I got over it fairly quickly - the worst being the incessant three to four days of constant sneezing. I cheer myself up thinking of the Count on Sesame Street, who LOVES to COUNT SNEEZES! Heh heh heh -

I even caught myself sympathising with a fellow shopper who heralded her approach behind me with a familiar honk - I had to turn around and say 'I recognise that sound, it's just like me - have you had your sinuses removed as well?' (It was a popular operation in the fifties involving electric wires being inserted right into the nostrils to 'burn out' the sinuses - as a dreamer I used to stare vacantly with my mouth dropping open - which caused the medics to convince my parent that I could not breathe through my nose due to enlarged sinuses and adenoids.)

The dear lady, who made such a wonderful blast from her poorly hooter, apologised, ('No need,' I smiled, airily,) saying her problem was rather more long-standing, being a permanent hay fever that would last until Christmas. Her husband, shocked into embarrassment not just at his wife's behaviour, but also at the response it had elicited, attempted to change the subject, in a furtive, hurried tone - 'Oh, darling, didn't we need some of these carrots over here?' - steering her away from my cheerful comments...

'Spiders from Mars'
(Ziggy Stardust - aka David Bowie aka...)

Funnily enough, I think this yearly onslaught of flu is partly due to the world and his wife putting on the heating indoors - all the moulds and mildews, fungi and fluff, start to circulate with the first convected currents of agitated air, disturbing our delicate mycelial linings where they find a soft warm moist bed in which to proliferate...

The second thing is the blasted flu jabs - never once have I failed to contract a nasty dose of it at the first hint of an injection, before the needle has in fact left my arm - and I shouldn't be surprised if the remainder of cases were down to those catching it from those of us who have been innoculated... In the last case, there is of course the wonderful migration of birds, mammals, insects... at the end of the suumer - along with a proliferation of Spiders, of all shapes and sizes.

Now you may think me quite mad - it wouldn't surprise me, - but I've had nigh on half a century in which to reflect on a certain little anomaly. In the Spring, our coughs and sneezes are apparently the result of pollen flying about, making strange protein-filled combinations for us to develop allergies to. In the month of September, and some of October, come to that, .there is the sudden multitude of spiders, large brown garden varieties, dark and mysterious bathroom varieties, little tiny red mite varieties, and the dogs and cats start scratching their ears incessantly - haven't you noticed?

I'm convinced (my entymologistic tendencies surfacing here) that the Spiders have a yearly 'bloom' in September, or thereabouts - and also in May, and that they migrate in and out of our houses, our bedding, our bodies, and range from all sizes - the tiniest invisible dust-mite to bloody huge. These are the culprits for the sneezes - and if I allow my imagination to run away with me, I should not be too surprised that they spin their webs in two-dimensional crystalline formations, that they have an affinity with snowflakes and Catherine wheels, that the African tribe of the Dogon worships the Spider God Anansi, said to be both the Sun and an emissary from Sirius, the Dog Star... And even octopi can create wonderful luminous multicoloured sea-circles which can only be seen at night, from very tall ships and satellites...

Do the eight-fold path, the Wheel, the Octagon as a seat of Government, and the World Wide Web have anything in common?

Do androids dream of electric sheep? (That was Philip K Dick, a wonderful writer born in 1928 who began writing sci -fi in the fifties - and whose story was the inspiration behind - yes, - Bladerunner!) This is a viable question for intelligence that, in spite of starting off as artificial, somehow grows as it goes along... A bit like some computers that learn to anticipate their users predispositions...

Whatever my Kraken is dreaming of when it fails to find my modem - or thinks it's found a new one and tries to reinstall the drivers for it... I dream of the one thing to end all dreams... A good night's sleep!

Adapted from a thread on the Dome
Copyright Jane Johnson 14th February 2000

The music playing is 'Balloons' copyright Jane Johnson 1999

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