moon traveller herald

Christmas 1972 When i lived in new york poor as a mouse door   i would go on fifth avenue shopping the windows   but i  got a white knit hat  for my sister at abraham-strauss   then there at scrbiners or coulda been doubledays and it was on about christmas i saw danny kaye brilliant, welcome, witty, immortal, adored by the store help i crossed ore a portal walter mitty in dream trance in life's dance a corker a short time new yorker.   would catch the train outta there but carry sprite danny sprite danny and the hat for my sister   in  a place in my memory.   until this very moment when here it is look here and you stand in front of me.                                        -JV also at  https://moontravellerherald.blogspot.com/2012/12/christm...

the plane bumped about slightly off its trolley as it gathered speed and lifted. the lights of the field arched and streaked. in tracy's view these were great candle-powered lamps. the lights - parallel and dance - recall the teacher's musical staff chalk contraption he would as a youth play with on the blackboard after school. supposed to be being punished. [Music] then tracy was in the air and he saw the canyon's lighter rock strata receding across the darkness. the mystery ice squadron boys were out there. the shroud valley boys too. he continued to push the throttle while pirate tearing asleep near a snooze  listen carefully to the engine it was difficult music very white in the watch tower with maylocks and cigarettes predicting the dam was key and the aptly named fog shrouded cast beyond texaco super b male left to come carry 545 passing arrows 555. the radio chatter crisp he could see the light of the tubes that glow through the enforced balsa dash even in the darkne...

Player Piano by Vonnegut describes the factory and the rise of automation in a dystopian but whimsical future. Machinists with their blackened hands. The punch press sound: 'Aw grump. Tonka Tonka. Aw grump. Tonka Tonka.' Vonnegut paints a picture where all humans face the fate of Native peoples run over by a colonizing power, in this case the power is technology, you have little but leisure time, your caught in a dream of 1984 with less harsh edges. He was something of a technical writer when he composed Player Piano [alternatively titled "Utopia."  [a press release and story writer for GE in Schenectady, NY after WW II] and was quite aware of "Cybernetics" because Weiner's writings were prominent. Norbert Weiner appears on page 14 of Player Piano, he comes up in conversation about time and motion.  Reading' And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut a Life" by Charles J Shields page 97 vonnegut is working at General Electric in Schenectady the job he got th...

 A rewrite My Secret Museum of Cybernetics i. Intellectual pretensions were welcome around my house growing up in Racine. I got a job at an after-school job at the library, and found  a book for every imagining I might have. At the point where Bob Dylan and Summer of Love mysticism was passing cars and rockets in my personal hit parade, I chanced upon the notion of feedback. It had a scientific aspect and a musical aspect [the latter in the hands of Jimi Hendrix, the Velvet Underground and Canned Heat]. I was assigned to write a thesis that could serve as an essay for college admission. So I had a mind to study. With Bronski's Science and Human Values in hand I began a piece on The Humanization of Science, in part a Renaissance study. In part a look at the history of alchemy. I'd often begin at the beginning of things and hardly get any further. At the same time I found out about Norbert Weiner and Claude Shannon - about cybernetics and information theory. Cybernetics, closely...

Kremlin-financed media outlet RT (formerly Russia Today) is little more than a propaganda machine controlled by Russian intelligence agencies. yet...Anyone shocked by the Kremlin-funded news station RT in all of this probably never heard of Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded news service that broadcast the American response to Soviet propaganda during the Cold War.  The Ruse seem quite able actors in this field - The US seems a ready audience. This stuff is taking me back to college days. I took a class on World Press at BU led by Larry Martin - actually L awrence Martin-Bittman , a former Czech Intelligence Agent - who had a unique view on "News". Martin-Bittman later wrote a memoir The KGB and Soviet Disinformation. There he wrote "Deception is a relatively easy game, particularly against anyone willing to be deceived. " One of Martin-Bittman's acts as part of Czech intelligence was to forge a letter from Cardinal Spellman to a W,German Anti-Commun...

Doug’s Pool Hall has got a little bit of ’63 Kennedy sculpture A smiley Johnny with a Santa’s face - There’s a genuine 1957 Braves’ team photo And beautiful Breck hair girls of golden eternity.... to read ... THE REST OF THE STORY  >>>

I remember the joy of watching Mr Wizard. Going into his lab, where he would welcome the kids. Somehow I recall him guest visiting Dave Garroway's Today show. A more vivid recollection is of a visit with Steve Allen. When my son was born, I begin taping his Nickelodeon [?] show to put him in front of it on demand. When I wonder why I am doing what I am doing now I think of shows like Mr Wizard, Bell Telephone Science Hour, and Connections. Thinking here: The kid who was Mr. Wizard's sidekick. It shoulda been me. I was green, the color of envy. I must confess.  https://moontravellerherald.blogspot.com/2007/06/goodbye-mr-wizard-june-12-2007.html

I got hearts, ah, in my looney tunes I got dreams and you do, too I got ten-wheel drive To pick you up, up to your ears, oh I got refined carbon in my eyelids cleared I've got no one to love and no one to fear You better walk it And talk it less you lose that beat You better lose yourself mama And knock yourself right off of your feet. -Lou Reed HEY SHERMAN LET'S GO BACK TO APRIL 2024!  

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...

Originally published Dec 7 2014.

  This was a mog page but mog went away so here i have inserted YouTube links - WALLSTREET PART OF TOWN – Ry Cooder - Does Ry Cooder get revenge on Stones’ theft of Honkytonk womae here? Who knows? He shows what he can do with a rock riff that will kill. It is a tribute to the Wall Street Occupiers (seems like ancient history, but was just a mere year ago). From a concept album. But this is beyond concept.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMT1SQA7dBE -NORTH SIDE GAL – J.D. McPhersen – He is a reformed punk I hear tell. I dig the sound cause, well it brings back Little Richard. I understand they did this all analog. There truly is something about the sound, it is of the studio era of 1948 – 1960 –when the art was high. By the way, I am from the North Side, myself.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZGn4LncY0g - COME ON BACK JESUS – Willie Nelson. A take on the world gone mad. It’s getting real hairy....

A Prose Poem: I dropped a penny in the river https://t.co/pwXFGE5TPa — Smili ng Jack Vaughan (@SmilingVaughan) October 17, 2021

Sweet Sunny South Song Part I dreamed I was ported in a teletime stream to the sweet sunny south i did ride where the past was sage and mint on the left and juleps and beer on the right how glad jack was just to be where the magnolias blossomed again til i found voter rights were trampled and slashed like grapes in the red devil's den. More short poems - including original version of this one. https://moontravellerherald.blogspot.com/2017/07/some-small-poems.html

============ in mission hill back in the cold war a race of cowboys lived underground they were hydrogenated cowboys flew b-47s they were on call serious cigarette smokers all had a hotline to the nike base hotrods and ransil functions in their basements i coulda heard their chatter on my quaker oats crystal radio all they wanted was the news the sapphire realization of impermanence and they got what they could looking out from the hole in the ground on the hill you could get there through dr ransil's garage if you could calculate the function chrome smoke still rises on the  phantom empire  below tombstone city shapes gray search lights probe the dark background of time Gene - the singing cowboy with his cavalry legion ever on the way. - Jack Vaughan, April 2012

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 Just a butt nip ahead of Scylla the giant eel With flashing sharp teeth, whoa! Going down to Felix's bodega To get this week's Herald With Prince Valiant on the cliff above.                                             -Jack Vaughan, 2014 Also See http://moontravellerherald.blogspot.com/2007/11/at-poes-grave.html

Thinking upon warmer days.. I love my apple cider I get it up on mission Hill I love my apple cider I get it up on mission Hill I drink my apple cider I drink until I get my fill. I'm an apple picking Papa have been for many long year I know I'm an apple picking Papa have been for many long year I know Yeah from the the Garden of Eden to the lines of Dudley-O I'll be pressing all my apples in the night and daytime too I'll be pressing all my apples in the night and daytime too I will have so very much that I can share a glass with you For the back story.