First Contact: Part II

I can’t get over that tribe that was discovered in Brazil…

… and how much “charcoal black guy” reminds me of one of the Orks from Lord of the Rings…

…and how happy the “red people” would have been had they taken out someone in the helicopter with one of those awesome precision arrows…

Synesthesia… or something.

So that’s what’s wrong with me.

Synesthesia is a word that my brain has been looking for for a long, long time. I stumbled into this article based on the keywords I read in the headline (poetry… neuroscience… tree-climbing). It basically discusses a concept in writing/poetry/art/expression/etc. of metaphor as a use of bridging the gap between two things that are, for all intents and purposes, fundamentally unrelated. Or to put it more succinctly:

metaphor is just a convenient shorthand for the connection of unlinked cognitive phenomena.

The way I’ve experienced this, and the reason my brain’s been seeking a word for the experience, is what I’ve been calling “the push.”  It’s that moment that you are paused, awaiting the proper formation of words and ideas in your brain, and you give a conscious “push” and the words come through, often combining adjectives with nouns that are… unconventional, to put it simply.

For example, “his hands were shaking, an orchestral stutter of triplicate drum rolls.”

Ok, so that wasn’t the best example.  But that’s what came out when I “pushed” it.  The bridge between the “unlinked cognitive phenomena”.

Still don’t get it?

Eh.  Read a book.  Or a poem.

First Contact: Amazonian Tribe set for colonization, cultural depletion

There really are people/tribes out there on this great earth that have never made contact with the outside world.  This link will take you to the first images taken from the air - our first glimpse into their world, their first terrifying experience with us, and the beginning of a slow, torturous undoing of their way of life.

Amazing, isn’t it?  All the villagers come running out of their huts to see what the “big loud bird” is doing.  Man, they must be freaking out right about now.

Upon closer inspection, we see that this tribe is primarily made up of red people, with one bright yellow guy and a charcoal black guy who MUST be the chief.  What are those in their hands anyway, rain sticks? Didgeridoos?

Oh my God… THEY’RE SHOOTING AT US!!!!  THEY’RE SHOOTING AT US!!!!  FIREBALL ‘EM!!!  FIREBALL THE HEATHEN BASTARDS!!!!!

Oh, natives.  When will you ever learn.

China is a disaster.

So… because of the recent tragedy in China - you know, the earthquake? Where’ve you been living, under a petrified pine cone for the last few months??? - the Chinese gubernment has decided to boost moral by discontinuing coverage of the NBA playoffs.

“Why?”  You might ask.

Because they’re classy.  And awesome.

I don’t usually dredge up old tragedies, but after 9/11 a large portion of Americans turned to baseball to reaffirm our belief in hope, rebuilding the future, and revitalizing our way of life.  And I’m not saying that 9/11 was equal to the earthquake, but tragedies are tragedies, and to take away something like sports, something that the country can rally behind and from which they can seek some kind of joy… well… it’s just a nightmare.

Hey kid, since your parents were killed in a car crash we’re gonna take away your favorite teddy bear because we want you to experience loss and trauma in all it’s nasty facets.

Yeah.  That’ll teach ‘em.

Houston, we have Phoenix.

More vehicles on Mars, more spooky pictures.

NASA landed the Phoenix lander on the Martian surface recently and it’s already sent back High Def pictures of Martian people doing everyday Martian things like playing on their lawns and going to work in the morning, or just reading books and hanging out on park benches.  An upgrade from the last rovers to be abandoned on the Red Planet’s surface is the new infra-x-ray lens which allows the lander to peer directly into the souls of the Martian people.  The first images we’ve seen are terrifying.

View them here.

Hillary wins the nomination!

… Either that or she’s in flat-out denial.

I’d have been happy to vote for her, but c’mon, Hill, it’s getting embarrassing. Now, even republicans are supporting Barak.

[side note: this video won a contest on MoveOn.org and remains probably the least believable thing I've seen all day. Including all of those maaagical rainbows that fell out of the sky into my morning coffee and supercharged me with the ability to shoot lightning from my eyeballs.]

Who’s YOUR candidate?

You may want to reconsider after seeing these ads.

Free music tastes better.

Even if it’s Nine Inch Nails.  As a “thank you” to their “fans”, NIN released a new “album” that is available for free on their “website”.  Click here to download.

Delicious.