Road Signs as Frames

And so, another frame (another useless road sign) gets painted along the Sustrans cycle path with something a little less useless.

A437

Ok, so you've probably guessed that I hate cars. The car is the most demented and stupid item man has ever created. And yet...

And so when I came across this useless little road sign telling foot pedestrians on a footbridge that this open gas pipeline (road) is the A437 I thought 'Nice one, what a lovely little frame.'

Kermit by Kilbarchan

Boy was I surprised at how evil some people can be when I came across poor Jeanne Moreau's 'figure' defaced so violently. I had put up a stencil of her (see previous post) on an opportune plaque along the sustrans cycle path at Kilbarchan. The following week when I passed here, I noticed (you couldn't not notice) that someone had taken their keys or a knife to the wood itself upon which it was painted and gouged it so violently that I actually wanted to meet this 'evil person' to ask him why he did it. At any rate, today I painted over it as best as I could and put Kermit up in Moreau's place. But the site has been ruined for good I fear due to this moron's antics. What can you do? You put up some art and people destroy it. Go figure.

Steam

Ok, so the picture above is not mine, but what a cracker! And it's the same steam engine that I saw yesterday chugging through Kilpatrick station which you can see below. It's one of the Strathspey/Jacobite engines now which has been plying Britain's railways since 1945. And I saw it, and it was good. Everyone else missed it cause they were staring into their hands.

Engine 44871 passing through Kilpatrick. (Above) The same engine passing across Rannoch Moor.

Two Jeanne Moreaux & A Jean-Pierre Leaud

On my routine cycle where nothing is ever routine since I'm out on the open on a bicycle I pass three schools in amongst the villages and towns. For a large part of the route I'm on the Sustrans cycle path - a bucolic corridor of a million trees that leads us down to the coast as serenely as possible. And so, a little tasteful 'artwork' and not 'graffiti' as the three lads having a pathside San Miguel corrected me.

Elysium

Elysium, the  place where gods and heros went after dying, is not a fiction. Rather, it is right in front of you, especially if you live in a valley city like Glasgow. This is because the valley creates hills and hills with their elevation, their visions, and their corresponding wisdom, create Elysium. It is no coincidence that the sanskrit word for elevated region, paradesha, is where we get our word paradise from. And if you want to get to Elysium, not just physically but spiritually, you need to die. This means getting rid of the gatecrashing world (and the 'age of man') and inviting the Earth back in. When you are dead to the world and all is karma then and only then will you begin the waking dream. And it is this waking dream (born of one's ego-death) that allows Elysium in.

Leafblowers Blowing Nothing: Noise as a form of Assault

This was what started my 'radical rants' several years ago and caused me to start penning my 'pet hates' (none of my hatred is petty btw): leafblowers and their demented users. I have already laid out the retardation inherent within a leafblower nevermind the actual practice of using one as compared let's say to using hand tools and your own steam. If there is one enduring symbol of man's decline (from the harmonious aborigine) I would say that it could well be the leafblower for its violence, its mind-destroying noise, and its general ineptitude as compared with a brush. It is an enduring symbol because that is the trajectory upon which your whole economic (dare I say it 'existential') outlook is based: overtaking the human by forcing power tools (that destroy the Earth and the bodymind powerfully) and not convivial tools (that do not force or pollute or destroy but enable, conjoin, and confer) upon you. This is the reality of a system of 'Progress' that seeks to improve the unimproveable, that seeks to measure the immeasurable, that seeks to value the invaluable: regression. Noise is a form of assault esp. if its is forced upon you without you seeing it coming. It is one of the principle contributory factors in mental illness, the noise that surrounds and penetrates us on a daily basis, legally. But noise, like rape, should not be legal. And so, this young man, dressed in his oompa loompa jumpsuit, with his ear protectors on, oblivious to the violence he is causing to others via this hellish noise, blowing nothing (and knowing that he is blowing nothing and that they are people who actually have to leave the platform because of the distress the noise is causing), is nothing more than another of society's legalized violators, who violate the Earth with their power (violent) tools and rape the  minds of others because clearly they have a problem with brushes and with peace.