Friday, March 24th 2023

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

In my March 20 post "Further green motorcycle syncs," I quoted the Jonathan King song "Everyone's Gone to the Moon." Besides the title line, which is repeated several times, the lyrics also include the line, "Everyone went to the Sun."

In the comments on yesterday's post "Aladdin's three elder brothers," I was ...

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Thursday, March 23rd 2023

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

One of my very young students told me this untranslatable Chinese joke today:

Q: 我問你,阿拉丁有幾個哥哥?A: 三個:阿拉甲、阿拉乙、阿拉丙。

Q: Let me ask you, how many elder brothers does Aladdin have?

A: Three: Alajia, Alayi, and Alabing. The joke is that Aladdin is transliterated as ...

1.5m (420 words)
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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

Over at my Owen Barfield blog, I discuss why even an expert disciple and follower of Rudolf Steiner, can expect to find added-value in reading Owen Barfield.

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

We were told a few days ago that starting from 23rd April 2023 - which is, significantly, St George's Day: the English patron saint) there will be Emergency Alerts broadcast nationally to all smartphone users by default.

This is a pretty obvious preparation for... whatever "fake pennant" operation They decide is ...

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

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Over at the Notion Club Papers I review and recommend the BBC Radio Hobbit dramatization from 1968; with its ambitious electronic soundscape, medievalish musical score, weirdly-distorted voices, and strange pronunciations.

Very much of-its-time - and enjoyable as such.

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

This morning I had a meeting at my school with the owner of a manufacturing company for which I do regular consulting work. He was coming to pay a bill and discuss some things. This was early, before the school's normal opening hours, so we were the only two there. I let him in and locked the door behind him. We do ...

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Wednesday, March 22nd 2023

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

The tyrannical puppets who administer the UK under orders from Sorathic demons; continue to paint an ever-brighter target on the British Isles -- with the recent official confirmation that They intent to send Mucky Missiles to attack the Fire Nation; despite... sorry, I mean precisely because the FN has inscribed a ...

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

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From the wonderful documentary series Edwardian Farm (BBC 2010), we get to meet Devon farmer Mister Francis Mudge - from 7:45:

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I was born, and spent my early childhood, in Devon - although I haven't visited for more than thirty years. From memory, it seems exactly the kind of ...

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Today an obscure song from 30 years ago, one I haven't listened to or thought of in ages, came to mind. In order to establish that its coming to mind had nothing to do with my recent posts about The Matrix, I will have to describe my train of thought in some detail.

First of all, few days ago, I happened to be ...

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Tuesday, March 21st 2023

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Just something to file away, from his 1979 autobiography From Heart to Heart:

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

Modern Men are, like it or not, confronted by what is commonly called relativism; and emerges in the idea that every proposition is 'just' somebody's opinion - and that none are more valid than any other.

This is the deep implicit assumption of modernity - and leads to the totalitarianism of arbitrary (because not ...

2m (610 words)
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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

The above question was asked me the other day; and it is a good question.

After some consideration, I realized that the answer is that I use Steiner's names to acknowledge the substantial debt and origin of the concepts; and then I develop the idea.

I do not attempt to conceal the development - indeed I discuss it ...

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Monday, March 20th 2023

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Over at Fourth Gospel First, I explore this apocryphal but thought-provoking episode.

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

We anti-leftists - including serious Christians - are prone to criticize mainstream modern Leftist Establishment ideology for being wrong: for propounding Fake New based on Big Lies.

But the problem is much deeper, and much worse, than this suggests. The problem is that mainstream ideology is incoherent such that ...

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

This Fast Show parody of BBC2 late night jazz programmes of the 1970s has had a big - indeed permanent - influence on my household; mainly by its catchphrases and gestures 'aside' to the camera - especially a purred Great! while making the OK sign.

Weirdly compelling:

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I can vouch for the fact ...

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

The delusionary nature of modern public discourse in the West, goes way beyond the realms of merely 'being wrong' or 'unreal' - because there is actually no concept of truth or reality against-which to judge statements and claims.

Cut-off from any acknowledgement of the primacy of the spiritual - focused entirely on ...

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

In my St. Patrick's Day post "You can set your watch by the green motorcycle," I relate a dream in which "wherever you were in the world, if you kept your eyes open at 5:00 Tuesday morning, Liverpool time, you would see a green motorcycle go by, timed to sync with the Beatles singing about it on Sergeant Pepper." ...

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Sunday, March 19th 2023

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

I have noticed that (at this time of writing) there has not been the kind of Spring Campaign by the globalist Establishment, which we have seen over recent years. I mean, there is no Big Thing being currently given a monolithic push by the coordinated efforts of multiple national governments, the mass media and the ...

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Saturday, March 18th 2023

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

This year-old video was for some reason featured for me on the front page of YouTube. Note the non-dinosaur they chose for the thumbnail and what color it is.

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The first part of the video itself closely parallels the H. G. Wells story "The Star," which I recently read. Later, it talks about an ...

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Author iconMeeting The Masters
William Wildblood

Bruce Charlton recently sent me a link to a Youtube video about Seraphim Rose and Alan Watts.

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For those who don't know Seraphim Rose was an American Russian Orthodox priest and definitely someone who was called to holiness. Alan Watts was a populariser of Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, in the ...

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Friday, March 17th 2023

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I dreamed that I was on a city sidewalk with a group of professional-looking people who were discussing something important. In the middle of the discussion, I noticed the time -- in a few seconds it would be 2:00 p.m. -- and interrupted:

"Excuse me, sorry to interrupt, but it's nearly two, and the green motorcycle ...

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Thursday, March 16th 2023

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

Maybe...

That, anyway, seems to be the consensus across a pretty broad, and very large, public viewership. Certainly, I've never seen anything - in any media (not even for fiction, or classic movies) - to compare with Clarkson's Farm's 9/10 IMDB rating from 45,000 people - and indeed, Series 1 was running at ...

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

A commenter asked me yesterday whether God had (in effect) judged Western Civilization, found it wanting, and embarked on its destruction.

This is not how it works.

In this mortal life on this earthly world, entropy has the upper hand: the innate tendency is destruction, and towards death - and this must ...

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

From my 2015 sync notes:

2015 Nov 1 (Sun) – Ate at a Korean restaurant in Taichung. On the way, passed signs for a restaurant called “Skylark,” and I explained to V what a skylark was. Went to Mollie [Used Books]. V got The Odyssey, retold by Robin Lister and illustrated by Alan Baker. I skimmed it and was ...

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

It is necessary for Christians to eschew the common practice of attributing the ups and (especially) downs of life to the luck (good or bad) and chance (favourable or adverse).

To believe in luck or chance as explanations, is to deny God's shaping of this world and our lives by creation - it is therefore, ...

1.5m (460 words)
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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

For Christians; living in fear is wrong, and sinful when accepted or embraced; but how we deal with fear is important - since some apparently-effective ways of dealing with fear are also sinful (such as prideful anger fuelled by resentment).

Yes, this is not a complex problem, it does not require abstraction, ...

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Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

Over at The Notion Club Papers blog; I review the 1981 BBC Radio The Lord of the Rings, which is something I have listened to many times.

Although the production is a bit patchy, and limited by the medium; I give this version a definite thumbs-up as a warm-hearted piece of work, frequently enjoyable - and sometimes ...

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Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

The H. G. Wells story "The New Accelerator" is about a drug that allows the person who takes it to think and move thousands of times faster than usual, making it subjectively appear that the world around him has slowed almost to a stop. Wells's description of the experience is quite cinematic and brings to mind this ...

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