Archive for March, 2008 Page 2 of 3



Evil Santa

It was around December of 1993, I was four at the time and the mall in my town was packed. My mother, doing some last minute shopping suddenly found a bin. Not just any bin. But a bin filled with movies. Christmas movies! And they were priced at a dollar each. Well, my mother just couldn’t resist. She blindly grabbed a couple and bought them. It was a snowy night. The fire was lit and the Christmas tree was by the window. The pile of videos my mom had just bought were at the table. My sister and me picked a movie that looked appealing, it was called SANTA CLAUS.
 
So mother popped it in. It wasn’t until it started playing that I noticed what looked like Satan in the background of the video jacket. What our family (except my father, who hated children’s films) saw was indeed shocking. The movie’s condition was terrible, like some strange 8mm film that had been hidden in a damp cellar. I remember it being the first dubbed movie I had ever seen, and to this day, the worst. I remember how frightening and un- jolly the Santa Claus was. I didn’t understand why there were so many kids in his workshop, I always thought they were elves. And why wasn’t he at the North Pole? I mean, floating castles? Come on! I remember how the little red devil man scared shit out of me and over time, became a frequent visitor of my nightmares! But the one scene I can most clearly remember is the scene where Santa brings this little boy into a weird laboratory with a glass window, and this little boy wishes for parents. Then these awful foil boxes appear and this man and woman rise up in a zombie-like fashion. It scared the crap out of me and still thinking about it gives me chills. I remember being shocked at how religious the movie was. From an impressionable child who’d been watching Disney Films and THE WIZARD OF OZ in an obsessive state had never heard the word “Jesus”, “Hell”, or “Satan” in a film made for children. And the brief images of hell in the movie etched a Catholic idea of it in my head for years until my ideas on religion eventually changed. Till I was at least 6, I had seen the film at least 3 times and each time watching it in complete and utter terror.

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Requiem for a dream, or Quantum future of Humankind in Infinite Universe

Right, I know it’s not exactly a memory. It’s not even a dream, but rather a requiem for one. I used to think that we live in infinite Universe. I do not have any scientific background to come up with theories or statements, but as a human being I reserve my rights for beliefs. Be it belief in Jesus Christ the Savour, spirit of improvisation, Santa Claus, infinity of space and time, or belief in myself, belief is an integral part of any sentient self-reflecting being.

This belief in infinite Universe was simply based on the fact that we can’t measure it.

Of course, we have data that our Universe is 13,73 billion years old (as of the last week :) ). So we can imagine a ball 13,73 billion years in radius (given the speed of light 299 792 458 m/s and length of 1 year as 31 556 926 seconds it will give us approx. radius of 13 730 000 000 x 299 792 458 x 31 556 926 = 129893055103132202840000000 meters… so you know). But, as it took me about 2 min. to come up with this calculation, this radius became roughly 3597509496 m bigger.

We reached the point there I got bored myself. The numbers are just too big too mean anything. If you go shopping and see something cost 3 pounds 99 pence you’ll think it’s 4 pounds, right? This is what called approximation. So 129893055103132202840000000 + 3597509496 and counting… is a number I can’t imagine. It’s something like Bill Gate’s fortune, numbers beyond my grasp. I think that approximation of 129893055103132202840000000 + 3597509496 is infinity. There’s no need for me to operate with such numbers. I remember reading some anthropological reports about some aboriginal tribes in Papua New Guinea. They had numbers 1 to 5, and then groups: 1 to 5 too, so everything could be shown on 2 hands.

20 would be 4 times 5; 25 - 5 times 5 . Everything that was over 25 was “many-many”, uncountable, infinity.

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Planting fake memories in permafrost of my brain

Do you remember that old movie “Total recall” with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Thinking about self-hypnosis and our abilities to induce memories, I decided to “create” fake memories inside my head. If you ask me why, I would tell you, probably just for fun. Actually, I believe our memories are mapped. None of them exists on its own, but rather refer to each other and interlinked with each other… our brain representing a big search engine, kind of biochemical based Google employing a random search. Try to refer to any memory you have: to make things easier, strong memory, or a memory of big importance for you.

An example. I have a memory of trying to climb up Everest.  It’s not the case of being megalomaniac, but rather accidentally. As long as I was there, you know.  I actually posted this memory here, on September 11th… :) , … nope, the date is just a coincidence. This memory opens up like a Russian matreshka doll: containing yet another one nested inside another etc. Thinking about that day brings back other memories: of finding a fossil near Milarepa’s cave, of fluorescent dog, of friendship, of moments while waiting for our friend we collected some stones and arranged them into a message “FREE TIBET”, of dying from thirst and cold. Whatever. This memory is also nested in others: of my long journey across Siberian plains, Mongolia, China, Nepal and India, of places I visited and people I met etc. OK, you have the picture.

Now imagine, you plant a fake memory inside your brain. Something completely out of sane mind and context, like planting a rare orchid somewhere in Siberian permafrost. If it will live, your brain would have to rewire it with some other facts, blending “reality” and “imagination”. So, what I’m interested in, is this “shadow zone”, border area in between, this vegetation between orchid and permafrost which my brain has to create to “index” this fake memory.

To make things even more interesting, I decided to experiment with planting fake memories in different contexts. For instance, I always wanted to visit Peru. So I thought  about planting a fake memory of this trip. But this task is way too grand, and the real trip would have too many details, so probably I wouldn’t succeed. Nevermind. I am writing a story at the moment. The best and easiest way to write is to write about something you know. It also gives the story some credibility, and makes it more captivating to read.

This story plot, to put it short,  goes partly in the future-past loop excluding present, partly in the parallel universes and most of it inside the black hole , with 3 main characters - creators of those parallel universes embedded without their acknowledgement in the mind of one character, whose consciousness is being badly split in 3 parts, meaning he is a schizophrenic (schizophrenia, actually literally means “split mind”, schizos phrenos in Greek, if I’m not mistaken). Moreover, these multiple “fake personalities” are being split in their own turn, forking further as the story develops… so it’s a kind of fractal consciousness in senses of being fractal and being fractured.

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My first memory of poo

Hello, I just had a look around Memorycemetery site, and found this memory by Tengu, called “Poo”. In this post Tengu says that she would like to find out if somebody else says sorry or thank you when they do poo. Well, I do sometimes. Moreover, there’s a site dedicated to poo, it called www.poopreport.com. I guess everybody interested in the subject can just have a look or contribute :) … Anyway, I would like to share my poo memory here too. Actually, I reprint it from PoopReport, but nevermind.

This is not the earliest memory I have, but it is one of the most vivid. When I was five I used to run around the house in my undies. (Ever since, I’ve always felt more comfortable and relaxed in them — which has led to some interesting moments when roommates have come home early from a trip or didn’t bother to tell me that they took the day off of work.) And back when I was five, I had this toy box — well, not really a box, but a giant plastic football. Now that I think about it, it kinda looked like a giant turd that had a hole on the top through which you would access the toys inside.We were living with my grandparents, as my mom and dad had recently divorced. My mom and I had to share the upstairs back bedroom. She was pretty good about it, as she was really only ever in the room at night to sleep; during the day I was allowed to play in there “quietly.”

I don’t recall exactly why that when I had to poop I didn’t just go to the bathroom. Instead, I choose to hold it. More than likely, I was probably just having a grand old time playing. So, sitting in that room dimly lit by the sun coming in through the window, wearing nothing but my favorite pair of Superman Underoos (I may have to find adult versions of these one day just to freak out my girl), holding in my poo, it happened. I was playing with Lego’s and Matchbox Cars, and when I moved to get more cars from the toy football, I suddenly had a giant turd in my underwear.

I didn’t want to say anything or get caught for fear of getting in trouble. I was getting in trouble a lot around that time for not having to pee before a car trip and then pissing my pants because I really did have to go. So I reached in through the front of my Roo’s and pulled out this turd that was bigger than my hand. I remember making a fist with my other hand and comparing them. Continue reading ‘My first memory of poo’

Other posts by grogan