Crystals, Annealing, and A-Ha Moments

The following two poems require a bit of explanation. 'Local Minima' was a proem (prose-poem) written in early August 2009, in an attempt to draw together problems in annealing algorithms and their relation to new ideas, with the repetitious faults one might encounter in the Tibetan Buddhist wheel of reincarnation. It deals with only two souls, albeit many lives, and one instance of crystallization. 'Local Minima' seemed unfinished at the time, though I performed it twice in 2009, with some random lines from Laurie Anderson's 'Closed Circuit.'

This past spring, I discovered the wonderful work of Liane Gabora and her 'Beer Can Theory of Creativity,' explicitly bringing the concept of simulated annealing into the apparently random process of creative enlightenment. Last week, I had a discussion with the astonishing poet Carolyn Srygley-Moore about the hidden math patterns of Jackson Pollock (which even Pollock himself was unlikely to be consciously aware of), and their relations to the random walk and traveling-salesman problem. She just finished a poem, 'reflections on a conversation with a friend,' which forced me to think about crystallization, melting, parasitic minds and emergent intelligence. Now 'Local Minima' has found its companion, 'Hive Crystals.' The two poems are NP-complete. They're a closed circuit, baby.

LOCAL MINIMA (for Jess)

My depth of gratitude for Clint Takeda’s simple words was not evident until the evening we leaned against the Knight Rider pinball machine in the long-demolished 15th Street Tavern, our inclined angles almost in parallel to the careening ball finding temporary traps in the pockmarks of David Hasselhoff’s painted face. Isobel was chanting, whispering perhaps, and it suddenly occurred to me the bardo pond looked just like the oscillating trap that those testing mixed-signal integrated circuits call “stuck-at-fault.” The bardo pond felt just like the point at which the energy daemon in a game of simulated annealing becomes “stuck at local minima.” The energy daemon felt just like the last pinball in the round.

Experts in genetic algorithms tell us that the energy required to overcome a local minimum is at least twice that to begin the process of annealing. From the point of view of the pinball, the valley walls are sheer and high, and the pond is cozy, maybe a bit warm for the mountains. There’s beer and brats for the beachfront property. Only that ominous I-70 sign warning truckers they have not reached bottom yet, reminds the pinball it is far from its poky little home, where its mother is no doubt greatly displeased. How does the pinball reach the flippers? In the wheel, the minimum quantum of energy is one lifetime. In pinball, the minimum quantum of energy is tilt. Twice the energy at go would suggest cheating at some point.

Western Missouri in 1842? Serb highlanders in 1942? Maybe the jerky pattern of those whispers is the sound of a record skipping. Call upon the gods of choice, but escaping the local minimum and leaving the canyon is a matter of chance. And the next annealing may not be the karmic destination you were hoping for. Maybe it’s best to sit by the pond in the bright sunshine and wait for the next streetcar to Pleiku.

Loring Wirbel

Aug. 8, 2009

Hive Crystals (for Carolyn)

Time it was the ones with guns
blotted my tears with tales of swarm intelligence, hive minds.
But if the living cell is a parasitic accident
the mitochondria as drone assassins
turn each instance of accidental grace
into the idealized snowflake,
the singularity of honey gone solid.

Emergent intelligence annealed is Jack Frost's friend
Each human hunch absent the need to know a frosted window.
One mind's stumble in an Ice-9 world
where every revelation begins with oops
with Honey Bear bottles in the solid entanglements
begging for a shot in the microwave.
Understanding introduced with a dose of Bisphenol-A.

Emergent intelligence melted, smelted
at a place where the crystallization moment
is lost in a Poisson pattern.
Worker bee's crystals embedded in dance.
Soldier ant's burden is and was weightless.
And the synaptic re-enactment enters the swarm.

Loring Wirbel
Sep. 19, 2010

Idiot Chic

Friends on Facebook know that this week, yours truly launched the "Idiot Chic" group, dedicated to worshiping the rise of know-nothing behavior in modern society, making art and humor out of the rejection of logic, discourse, and the scientific method. Is this cruelty? Is this irony? Hardly.

As David Thomas of Pere Ubu reiterates on his Hearpen site, it is important to rid yourself of an abundance of irony (or cynicism, for that matter), and say what you mean. OK, clown mask off.



An Irony-Free™ Site

In 1984, I was among a group of well-meaning clowns who ran a dog for president, under the double moniker of the Disgusted with Yuppies Party and the Stupid Toy Society. Though this was before the rise of Gameboys and smartphones, we could foresee the consumer world defined by its stupid toys. Revel in the madness, tra-la, tra-la.

Similarly, here in the 21st century, it was disheartening to watch Clay Jenkinson of Thomas Jefferson Hour get so disheartened over a "New Dark Ages" - sure, I agree with him, there is a surfeit of literacy and little concern for making a rational argument any more. In fact, large sectors of the political and cultural world stridently reject rationalism in favor of making emotional faith-based or authority-based arguments as a way of establishing identity. My old friend Sandy said that it's of little use to lament the passing of the Enlightenment - humans have been idiots through most of their evolutionary history, and are not going to change because you whine.

In fact, we are so busy spotting the two-steps-back, we fail to notice the baby steps forward. Sure, the society is getting scary-dumb these days, but at least in Western culture, we see few of the violent gangs to enforce conformity that we saw a century ago. Today, stupid is a fashion statement, an art form. If the three most common culinary icons in 2010 are bacon, cupcakes, and IPA beer, why fight it?

Hence Idiot Chic. Like the steampunk movement currently running out of steam, the rise of cultural vapidity requires a documentation, a celebration, a reference point. Dedicated web sites or blogs are too blase, Twitter fails to give us the cultural richness we need, but a Facebook group fits the necessary dumbness model. But for those of you who refuse to bow to Mark Zuckerberg's Frankenstein monster, consider this blog an occasional and indirect portal to the moron in all of us. Hail Idiot Chic.

Honor Among Witches

Here are two poems from late August I have been remiss at posting:

Restoring Honor and Yellow Pinstripes

(for a rodeo clown)

Some weekends restore more honor than others.

Languorous nickel cones, for example,
Plump eggplant A’s and T’s sighing searchlight pinstripes
in Fisher-Price choo choo rows
before McAllister pocket windows
flex valor in buckets
but won’t turn over for curse or blessing.

Or the ’57 Chevys overflowing from Rosie’s
Honorable keepers of keys left snoring in the lot
as an officer searches catacombs for an off-switch to alarms.
Restoration at a price, always a price.

If I still owned a timing light,
If I still cared for honor
Michigan’s loveliest pinstriper
could accessorize medal upon medal upon medal.

But I misplaced the dueling pistol,
sold off the rapier,
told the half-brothers that sisters aren’t strangled
for infidelities on my watch.
Honor leaves silvery tastes of beef tongue, dust motes
I wait instead for the instrumental moment.

Loring Wirbel
Aug. 30, 2010

*******


In a Land of No Witches


Goodwill trembles in the thistle-choked ditch
Fruit fly proboscis in each tear duct
Afraid to look at the aid administrator declaring
“Witchcraft has been banished since Lugard
bullwhipped the Niger.”

Emilohi weeps behind a battered door
Clothes with buttons
Only-thing-greater-is-God
dictate the separation of cups – Six of Cups? –
terror of spells, child abuse

Abby asks if the expansion of scientific inquiry drove miracles away
I tell her Lives of the Saints is a bullshit Bunyan tale
Goodwill begs there be no witches

The clinical saints march in cadence,
Forbidding clitorodectomal horrors here, there
eye of a newt, a purple flurp
a large, one-eyed, no-nosed nothing
The clerical saints panic, torn between exorcisms of choice
and a temporal alliance with the ancient ones,
living outside the law of Newton
Pagan priest, pederast saint, both in the last band
Of armed ‘Ndrangheta
Hawking hollers, “Come on out with your hands up!”

And as our rationalist gang plays Whack-A-Mole
We miss the hairline cracks seeping spells
Even still, even still
Goodwill trembles.

Loring Wirbel
August 27, 2010

When Nuns Bring Beer

Sister Barbara poured two perfect-head MGDs
Just as the sun’s neutrino vomit hit the upper atmosphere
She wondered out loud about reeling in the contemplative sisters
who dismiss the warmth of the barroom.
What fishing lure can return them to the necessary breath?

I reminded her that every Stylite needed to eat and shit
Even if it took a diocese force-feeder ascending that column.
The breath is here, the choice has been made.
But then again, Catholics always proved better at works.
A new crowbar might be required to pull a Calvinist ascetic
from the bubblegum stuckness of prevenient grace.

Not stuckness, Barbara smiled, stuck-in-againstness.

We could feel the corona spillover while we watched the condensation rings
warn us that the necessary breath is a closed circle.
Accept the gift, accept the terror of each anonymous death
without once averting your eyes.

What if the astronomers were wrong,
I thought as I got up to leave.
Maybe that walk to the car, a seach for auroral lights
would leave my bones pliant.
She wondered if a squid was any easier to reel in,
and reminded me of dozens of assassins, closer than the sun,
that might lurk in those last two hundred steps.
And besides, she said, you must finish your beer.

Loring Wirbel
August 4, 2010

Eating Habits: Two Poems for August Harvest

Sparse Nutrient

for Mitch Miller, whose death helped me remember Ray Heatherton's crucial role

monsoon timpani thunder cracks
dreams to Dolby 5.1 surround
as I sing of weevily wheat and cake for Charlie
lightning splits Ponderosa pine,
a revelation that Agnes of God was covering the Merry Mailman
all along
making manifest your tears during intermission
that left the leaven far from neat and far from sweet and far from dandy
Merry Mailman sang of heirlooms basil fingerlings
Big Rock Candy I am sure of these hymns
but only the next track played for the hailstorm shuffle
“I don’t want to play in your yard.
I don’t like you any more.”

Loring Wirbel
Aug. 2, 2010















Chemtrails

I. “My mother is toxic.”
Her hiss unwraps to a scream to be heard over warm bath of scramjet
as the waking me insists F-15s are not cropdusters.

Our Amelia makes no such distinctions
But an Adderall, any SSRI
is the minimum needed for biplane stunts
With second-seat status I sit back for the show.

First Mach 5 swoosh over fallow heart
counts back one –
the May morning a stealth bomber stammered my attic
counts back two –
a day before drones silenced aerial bombing forever and always
counts back three –
the fine dust of pleas, doing the best that she can, and her brother despised her, and it’s only
one payday and it isn’t dependence

Navigator claims no ancestral, antecedent poisons
only the pilot, only the pilot

The fence line approaches, pull throttle phallic and

Oh the genetically-modified hearts still in want of this dust.

II. In Mach 1 days Schwinn brigades
raced the town pesticide tanker
Pride in the Jack of Spades clothespin spoke and
Pride in the white sticky shower
Unaware then, molecules clung like a lonely biphenyl
Got milk, got dread and longing but we live Mach 5 now
Scramjets blast dust, sandblast tears, pulverize tangential bloodclots
to a featureless surface from a year with no corn.

Where boom resonates was two betrayals ago
She has breached the horizon for a soybean approach
counts back one –
foreclosures layoffs leave vapor-trail scarring
counts back two –
the broken doll for Green Giant desire
counts back three –
when dust cements thumb and index together
there are no pilot prayers to eat locally
only a pilot chant you never called you never called

Until the cropduster defining the maps of your own restraining order
has broken the sound barrier
leaving every combine sticky to the Iowa border
finding grain silo, missile silo jointly unsound
only then will her chemtrails
disclose the latent pull of what
all the local wheat farmers call collateral damage.


Loring Wirbel
July 17, 2010

Zen Wisdom from Carl, Plowshares Passion of Isaah, and the Leap from Baptist Road

"You'll be the one that laughs at Carl's jokes," Bill Sulzman said as we pulled on to US 24 at 7 am July 1. "I've heard them too many times by now."

We were driving to Tennessee for a conference celebrating 30 years of plowshares actions against nuclear weapons, co-sponsored by Nukewatch and The Nuclear Resister. I figured it would be a great chance to absorb the corny folk wisdom of the "Fool for Christ" repeat-protester Carl Kabat, subject of a long court trial last December in Greeley. I'll admit, the uncertain state of travel for Carl and his friend Chrissy Kirchhoefer had put me off at first, since it left my wonderful friend MacGregor Eddy as the fifth person out in a Prius (and Chrissy ended up only being on board on the way back). But MacGregor took a train to St. Louis and found herself a ride from there, and by mid-morning, my main concern was getting to St. Louis by 10 pm or so, which would allow me to catch a performance by Susan Cowsill at Off-Broadway. It worked, with 15 minutes to spare. After a grueling road day, Bill shared whiskey with Carl, and our St. Louis hosts Terry and Caroline, while I sauntered out to hear Cowsill legends of the fall.

Susan was wonderful with her own songs and those of brother Barry, Jimmy Webb, Albert Hammond, John Prine, Bob Dylan, et al. (please go see the large collection on my YouTube), but the surprise of the show was hearing the songs of her bassist, Mary Lessaigne. A quirky, brilliant songwriter in her own right, Mary and Susan made for great partners:





On the trip to Bountiful (or Maryville, near Knoxville) July 2, Carl let on as how his constant muttering of "whatever" had led a Catholic Worker friend to warn him he was "dismissive," which became the secret code word of the trip. He also told us of various Catholic Worker marriage rituals, which prompted Bill to ask, "Do you do anything conventional, Carl, or are all your services hippie-dippy in one way or another?"


We stopped to see my parents in Crossville, TN, where Carl shared stories of using horses and mules to plant and harvest corn in his youth.

How to begin to describe the abundant wealth of people giving presentations at the Maryville conference over the weekend? Nuclear facilities experts like Ralph Hutchison, Mary Olson, Jay Coghlan, and Glenn Carroll were all there. The inimitable Kathy Kelly was around to share tales of her pork-loin-slingin' youth in a meat-packing plant. Australian activists Marcus Atkinson and K.A. Garlick gave an update on the power of uranium mining companies, who removed a prime minister with the snap of their fingers in June. And the list went on and on - Steve Kelly, Bill Sulzman, Frank Cordaro, Jim Haber, Sue Ablao, Jackie Hudson, Mariah Klusmire, and a musical performance by early-60s icons Guy and Candie Carawan, joined by son Evan. Dozens of these presentations are on my channel, and are worth your time. I gave a workshop on White House politics, well attended, and I take it as the finest of compliments that two of the three nuns arrested in Colorado in 2002, Ardeth Platte and Carol Gilbert, said they loved it.

Saturday night, Liz McAlister, the widow of Philip Berrigan and a key founding member of Jonah House, gave a prophetic and sobering speech about the necessity of peace actions, evoking images of Isaah and Ezekiel. Four of the eight King of Prussia Plowshares activists from 1980 followed, and the first to the stage was Carl Kabat. Note the focus he places on humor and joy, one reason I consider him a mentor and role model:



Sunday, Carl and Bill and I skipped school to visit Cade's Cove in Smoky Mountain National Park - not too crowded for July 4th, though it got ugly after a while. Meanwhile, those planning civil disobedience at Y-12 went through hours of sessions of affinity-group peace work. That evening, I needed a break from all peace work, and drove to Deral Fenderson's Homestead for a strange and wonderful July 4 celebration. Apologies for no videos of Deral/JJ or Amy (though trust me, they're looking great), but I did get some mighty wonderful sax and trumpet noodling, and a special rendition of the Declaration of Independence:



Didn't sleep much that night, as I had to get back to the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge for the morning's civil disobedience at 9 a.m. The actions were preceded by some great speeches and songs, including young children reading off rules for nonviolence. I had enough time to take a staged shot of MacGregor, who had elected not to get arrested since she faces a serious trial in southern California July 15:

Two groups of protesters performed two simultaneous actions about 10:15 a.m. The three nuns and 11 other people directly entered federal property, making them subject to more serious federal charges. Another 23 people blockaded a road owned by the state, and they were arrested and charged by Tenn. officials. Some highlights of the action are below. (My mom was so impressed by the media coverage, she said that the papers talked about "all the celebrities" at the Maryville conference and the actions. I said they were celebrities among a small group of friends, to be sure.)



Carl, Chrissy, Bill and I all elected not to be arrested this time out, so we started back toward St. Louis by 11 a.m. Chrissy was full of delightful stories about how to interpret Carl and keep him in line, and Carl had to bite his tongue to avoid saying "whatever." We went to the Shlafly Tap Room that evening, and left Carl and Chrissy at the Carl Kabat house.
















The trip across Kansas was pretty uneventful, save for the beautiful new wind farm east of Hays, and the scary tornado clouds east of Limon:





Bill and I spent a lot of time talking about sources of inspiration, the love and bonds of the 200-some-odd Plowshares people there that weekend, and the odd scenarios that can still lead a desperate person to suicide. All was well at home, with Abby's birthday being planned, but the story did have a strange postscript: I-25 near my house had been closed most of the day when a woman jumped off the Baptist Road bridge at 2 p.m., in front of a tour bus, as a way of making her suicide certain. The same bridge where the oil truck spilled in early April, a precursor of Deepwater Horizon. And no, for oil trucks and despondent people, there will never be trucks enough. It was good to get solace from Plowshares friends, and a few Zen jokes from Carl, to remind me that I need not pay attention to the blood.

"I think I'll save suicide for another year." - Scott Hutchison, Frightened Rabbit

Summertime Aural Affairs

You've no doubt heard me ramble on numerous times (on social networks, if not on this blog) about the perfect summer album of the year being The New Pornographers' fifth studio album, Together. This is their first undeniably A+ album, with every song a keeper, every song perfect for beach parties and endless sunsets, complete with four-part harmonies and riffs you will remember all summer long.






Still, there were more jewels offered up in mid-June, before a drought that precedes the August-September flurry of Arcade Fire, Strokes, Belle and Sebastian, REM, and Interpol (oh, and did we mention, New Pornographers' own Kathryn Calder with her first solo album? Watch out, Neko "I'm white trash and I will pummel your ass" Case!) To wit:

1. Laurie Anderson, ""Homeland" -- A remarkable, eerie work that takes off where "United States" left off. Yep, on beyond Sharkey or Strange Angels. It's imperative to get the full Fenway Bergamot experience by picking up the 12" vinyl single and "Pictures and Things", a companion to "Another Day in America." And if the CD/DVD pack seems pricey, it's worth it for the DVD in which Laurie explains how the harmonic violin works, and Lou Reed tells how he had to play dictatorial hubby-editor, to convince Laurie she couldn't use 106 tracks on an album, and that "Laurie can do anything except the practical You would not want her to be a tour director, or negotiate a contract." And Eyvind Kang plays violin, what more do you want? One of the year's best.

2. Devo, "Something For Everyone" -- OK, I admit I really wanted to hate this album after seeing the band on Letterman and Regis & Kelly. Of course I've always loved the Mothersbaugh/Casale crew, but in the late 80s and 1990s, they were getting pretty insufferable. If I never see another flowerpot.... Sure, in the new album they use all those idiotic catch-phrases like "Don't tase me, bro," but the end result is more than a 21st-century whip-it disco, though it will never be as scary as Devo's Booji Boy roots. Devo just wants us to consume and dance until the edifice falls, and that's OK for now.

3. Robert Pollard, "Moses on a Snail" - I won't go along with reviews calling this morose or inconsequential, but it is not a Pollard party album. Despite a couple upbeat songs, it is the Pollard version of a Michael Gira "Angels of Light" project - pensive, introspective, all that. OK with me, but if I could change one thing, I think the cover art is hideous, even if it's supposed to be ironic.

4. The Roots, "How I Got Over" -- It would be understandable to worry about Jimmy Fallon's house band going uber-commercial, but that's not what is going on here. They've adopted a chilled-out Gil Scott-Heron type of sound, except many of the songs are in a minor-seventh key, so they drift together as a continuing riff, with guest singers and rappers fading in and out, including such odd collaborators as Monsters of Folk, Joanna Newsom, and John Legend. And of course, since it's The Roots, you know the lyrics are culturally-socially conscious, if a little down.

5. Elephant Micah, "Live at WNYC" -- Many thanks to Gavin Hobson for saying this was one folkie voice I had to hear, and WNYC for making this a free "Spinning on Air" download (http://beta.wnyc.org/shows/spinning/2010/may/16/) Hearing this guy is like hearing Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer for the first time - not because Joe Connell's/Elephant Micah's voice is like Dave's, not because the lyricism is similar, maybe because they're both transcendentalists, though Dave was a Buddhist transc., while Joe is more of a Thoreau/Emerson type. Songs about canoes on Indiana lakes are about as direct as anything gets these days. Really worth hearing.