Allegra Rivett Sloman's blog

The world’s present industrial civilization is handicapped by the coexistence of two universal, overlapping, and incompatible intellectual systems: the accumulated knowledge of the last four centuries of the properties and interrelationships of matter and energy; and the associated monetary culture which has evolved from folkways of prehistoric origin.

The first of these two systems has been responsible for the spectacular rise, principally during the last two centuries, of the present industrial system and is essential for its continuance. The second, an inheritance from the prescientific past, operates by rules of its own having little in common with those of the matter-energy system. Nevertheless, the monetary system, by means of a loose coupling, exercises a general control over the matter-energy system upon which it is superimposed.

Despite their inherent incompatibilities, these two systems during the last two centuries have had one fundamental characteristic in common, namely exponential growth, which has made a reasonably stable coexistence possible. But, for various reasons, it is impossible for the matter-energy system to sustain exponential growth for more than a few tens of doublings, and this phase is by now almost over. The monetary system has no such constraints, and according to one of its most fundamental rules, it must continue to grow by compound interest.

You know, I’m not going to talk much about Conflikt.  It was awesome, let’s leave it at that. I got demonstrations of everything that’s good and bad about my people, and you just gotta roll with it.  The Bad:  domestic breakup, but the good buried in that is that I sang “Invective” to all the appropriate people.  The Good: Lark the Cello took a spill after a concert.  And broke scrollwork.  How can that be good? After we made sure the owner was okay we took up an instant and enormous collection for her repair, and the cello got a filk to Mary Ellen Carter written for her.  There’s more than enough money to fix her and buy strings and upgrade the gigbag, and a competent luthier was instantly located, and beauty will continue to sing through her elegant wooden frame. My peeps, they are phenomenally amazing.

Last night just as I was leaving work Tom called and asked if I had dinner plans. Then he and Peggy invited me over for PRAWNS om nommm nommmm.  Then I had to scooch back to my place because Cindy came over for filking filking filking hot damm.  And I wasn’t expecting to have the Tom and Peggy show as well, but Tom shortly thereafter showed up with his guitar in his hand and Peggy showed up shortly after that after having dropped the Beanpie back at his folks’ place.  We wound it up around 10 – if John was still alive he just would have gone back to Cindy’s and kept singing.  But me, my pumpkin carriage was outside my bedroom door, honking.

Beanpie is so adorable!  he makes the same sounds Keith did at that age, but his voice is if anything even more musical.  He’s also mothering strong and very, very enthusiastic about food.  Like me!  Prawns, omg om nom.

And because I am  eployed, comfortably domiciled with my bro, and undeservedly lucky, we’re going out to brekky and making wit da flapjacks.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-amazon-fungi-polyurethane-oxygen.html

Be Mine, be mine, and be somebody else’s

I won’t force you into a pair

Be Mine, be mine, and be somebody else’s

You talent’s exceedingly rare

Be Mine, be mine, and be somebody else’s

I tell you for I truly care

Be Mine, be mine, and be somebody else’s

A skillset like yours should be shared

 

In this life there’s a bias for binary thoughtless

It starts with your left hand and right

Couple Up and De-Couple!

sells novels and newspapers

Tropes that are tragic and trite.

Whatever your naughty bits com-mu-ni-ca-tion

is key to affairs of the heart

so in delineating polyamory

that is the place that I start

 

Be Mine, be mine, and be somebody else’s

I won’t force you into a pair

Be Mine, be mine, and be somebody else’s

You talent’s exceedingly rare

Be Mine, be mine, and be somebody else’s

I tell you for I truly care

Be Mine, be mine, and be somebody else’s

A skillset like yours should be shared

 

You don’t make assumptions or fail to do checkins

When you’re angry you use your words

You try not to judge, but when something goes ‘squick’

you are quick to say that’s for the birds

You rarely make promises, but you will keep them

on that your friends may be assured

and you’re made out of action, instead of excuses

a life style choice I much prefer

think of a sad, slow folk tune from the British Isles

It’s an old, old, tale I tell

the love that loves not me

So fair, so fine, with a heart so kind

a beautiful form, a brilliant mind

I can hear the mocking as I walk these halls

with my face so sallow and grim

To save all that’s left of her in this life

I must always be looking at him.

http://members.efn.org/~bch/songs/habitraillyr.html

I just LOVE the tune of this, and I intend to sing it for my mother some day.

One of my lurkers is decrying my radio silence.

Continue Reading »

Every time I think graphene is the strangest thing ever, the boffins at UManchester kick my brain’s ass. http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/news/display/?id=7895 Anyway, if you are a science fiction writer this new finding should jar loose some awesome ideas.

Atheists in conversation.

Me : Mocking religious people “God exists because I can feel him in my heart”

Katie:  “Honey that’s called BLOOD.”

We are going to be talking about accommodations, because her house hunting is not going well.

Not enuff rehearsal!!!

Soup lunch went okay, but the really exciting news was the very tasty guitar stylings Paul threw on top of the new choon.

The Bed

I’ve invented a bed, though no patent’s been applied for
and it’s the kind of bed (hint hint) … that is to die for
If there’s one thing that I know about our human race
it’s that we’ll be having lots of sex in outer space

Chorus:

& I’ll love someone, love someone, love someone
who knows how to handle zero G
(and I know it’s microgravity!)
I’ll love someone, love someone, love someone
who knows what to do in zero G

I believe that the design of my bed …  will prove out best
And I’m gonna need a quarter mil to put it to the test
and another quarter mil to launch a buddy for the trial
but I think you’ll need a crowbar if you want to lose my smile

Chorus

I’ve designed my bed for two but in a pinch it will hold three
for you never know when someone’s going to think creatively
or be needing to accommodate some polyamory
I can’t predict its uses and that’s half the fun you see

Chorus

So picture (if you will)…  a tube of comfy fiber
now I have to bring more detail if  I’m to describe her
There have to be attachment points …two fore and two aft
I’m hoping you can picture it and I’m not going daft
there are 4 more in the middle to take care of Newton’s laws
for they anchor you and dampen out the bounce on roll and yaw
If you’re entertaining fantasies of being overpowered
You can weigh two hundred pounds and get tossed ’round like a flower

Spoken:  Peggy would like to remind us that you still have to make allowances for mass.

Chorus

There are bungees wrapped around the bed to keep you pressed together
and if you lose traction ankle straps are optional as tethers
If there’s too much bounce and wiggle the bed just self corrects
and it will work for anybody’s preference and sex

Chorus + apogee perigee zero-g to fade

I have really bad vertigo.  And I’m committed to take a soup lunch in to church today.  Bleaugh!

I have a metric crapstack of stuff to do before Conflikt, so I hope I keep my wits about me this weekend.

A new poem. It’s been ages since I wrote one.