moon traveller herald

   On 100th anniversary of his birth - Claude Shannon was born in Petoskey, Mich., and grew up in Gaylord, Mich. He worked as a messenger for Western Union while in Gaylord High School, and attended college at MIT, where he was a member of Tau Beta Pi. Although the algebra of digital binary bits was first uncovered by mathematician George Boole in the mid-19th century, it was Shannon who saw the value of applying that form of logic to electronic communications. As a student of Vannevar Bush's at MIT in the 1930s, he worked on the differential analyzer, perhaps the greatest mechanical (analog) calculator. His paper, "A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits," which led to a long association with Bell Laboratories, laid out Shannon's theories on the relationship of symbolic logic and relay circuits.... When I was young, Shannon's work was a tough nut to crack, but it certainly was intriguing. As a high school boy, I was interested in the future ...

In 1967 my parents took a monthlong tour of Europe, leaving me, my brother and sister with my aunt and uncle in Milton Mass in some pseudo farm and horse country outside of Boston. This was a serious dislocation from my high school friends who I was sure we're having the most wonderful summer ever at North Beach In the day and the Point at night. All I had was records I’d brung along [Happy Jack, Electric Music for the Mind and Body, The Grateful Dead, Moby Grape and Sgt. Peppers(5a)] and a little turntable. That is like: background. One night on tv there was a show about ‘hippies’. They had these guys on, and I would bet they were from the commune that John identified: The True Light Beavers. The joke was one of them had a basketball uniform top on saying “True Light Beavers”. I knew it was a put on. And I liked it. They took their name from the shirt they found at a Goodwill. Are you religious? The moderator asked. Yes, they said. Our religion is called the True Light Bea...

click to enlarge http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/world/middleeast/syria-government-forces-clash-with-kurds.html

On Shakespeare's birthday... BLUE: Shakespeare is gone now, man, a long time. I ask: Who so ably hears... RED: ... The signal of the spirits buzzing like Black Vespers in the aire?       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From David Garrick's Ode to Shakespeare ... When our Magician, more inspir’d, By charms, and spells, and incantations fir’d, Exerts his most tremendous pow’r; The thunder growls, the heavens low’r, And to his darken’d throne repair, The Demons of the deep, and Spirits of the air! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There's more..now to bard hisself.. I was thinnin' about All Along the WatchTower.. ran a concordance ["tower" ] on Shakespeare..and lo and behold an idea for a song: The Black Vesper Stomp. Antony and Cleopatra [ IV, 14 ] Antony 2979 Sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonish; A vapour sometime like a bear or lion, A  to...

BLUE: That guy messed up the sparrow family - cutting down that tree. RED:You know humans - as long as they have an axe, they have to cut something.

The Boston Evening Transcript by T.S. Elliot The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn. When evening quickens faintly in the street, Wakening the appetites of life in some And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript, I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning Wearily as one would turn to nod goodbye to Rouchefoucauld, If the street were time and he at the end o the street, And I say,"Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript." --- Here's something i dug..Why? My kick is to read the newspaper. Briefly, I am master of the universe. Sometimes I see the patterns that forecast the future. Can you imagine me there doing that/ Here Elliot tells it but couched in a Sgt. Pepper-like sepia recollection. I think the readers of Evening papers were middle class, an upper. While morning papers were for working people. But to 'sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn'' that could be pe...

I discovered this in the basement. It bears resemblance to I Will See You In The Spring done by The Memphis Jug Band although it appears to be from another planet.

Noting passing of Dream Syndicate's Tony Conrad Film and Audio astronaut of '60s Lower Manhattan. I don't know too much about him, but he was an influencer on the influencers. And I picked up on him when I was picking up on LaMonte Young . Like Ed Sanders, he would make his own instruments for his own purpose. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/arts/artsspecial/tony-conrad-experimental-filmmaker-and-musician-dies-at-76.html http://moontravellerherald.blogspot.com/2015/09/la-monte-young-and-second-dream-of-high.html This is a bird drawing that remarks on human pattern: That the week before a ceasefire tends to be hellish, as sides push for advantage ahead of stasis. The drawing was my entry in the #drawabirdday activity. From the vaults my poem for Jennifer Lawrence - Thinking all week of lithe Aleta in the deep A bit like Jennifer Lawrence in toga Salvaging the wreck Holding her breath Holding the line and  Heading up in the dark green current FOR MOR...

They say the Syrian ceasefire is getting shakier and shakier. Russia may back Assad efforts to re-take Aleppo (loci of St. Paul's conversion). This is about a month into the sometime sporadic truce, and there hasnt been much progress on the diplomatic front. During 1st week of ceasefire about 150 were killed. Still, it could be worse, and, as far as ceasefires go, this is not the worst. The bird drawing here remarks on human pattern: That the week before a ceasefire tends to be hellish, as sides push for advantage ahead of stasis. The drawing was my entry in the #drawabirdday activity. - Jack Vaughan

April 4 1968 the Racine Public Library suddenly - closed. Martin Luther King, shot! April 4 1968 Martin Luther King Shot! Head home - 'there's curfew' the police drive by me , walking, to remind. True action begats false counter action then some short period of reconciliation followed by long years of nefarious, evil counter action, counter action waiting again for truthful direct action. -jack vaughan

In Feb Barclays and Credit Suisse settled with the SEC which uncovered their nefarious high frequency manipulations in their dark trading pools. What’s with that? To go figure a good place is Flash Boys. But it is not an easy read. Flash Boys delves into the netherworld of Wall St trading in the 2000s – where the devil is in the latency, and professional ethics is shit out of luck. Writer Michael Lewis paints a picture of an obsessively complex world of finance that attracts the underside of human aspiration. That echoes The Big Short, his earlier piece and a quite successful film in 2015. But here the technological complexity that serves the finance engine rather gets the better of the story - ultimately Flash Boys pales a bit in comparison to The Big Short, as a result. We have a worthy hero at the center of the tale in Brad Katsuyama of Royal Bank of Canada, but the story can be stumbly as it tries to convey his efforts to uncover the culprits in the dark pools of high f...

BLUE: When I look at Charlie I can only think: ''All things in moderation.'' RED: I think "All things in moderation.. including moderation.'' more birds ... 

Met up with Dave and Jim at Henry's BBQ Palace in San Jose. Haas ba you? How are you Murray? Toady and yesterday clash with klang of our everlasting joy of togetherness. Then, time comes, Jim just return to SF - Dave to Los Altos. Which they do. And I walk under the overpass - and to the Whole Foods, to get some water, and what hits me but, Supermarket in California by great greybeard poet of our time Allen Ginsberg?