The Uncanny Valley

I think "The Uncanny Valley" relationship-phenominon to highly-lifelike appearing robots is a natural emotional reaction for normal people, because a robot will always be artificial on some level, and making technology appear natural is in contradiction to what technology is -- an invention of the will.

On the gross level, your human will feel like the scientist is trying to pull a fast one on him. On another level, the human being will feel like technology is trying to mimic him, as a replacement. Ultimately, technology can do neither, because it is the demonstration of the will.

Basically -- I think that "The Uncanny Valley" can be avoided if we relate to technology as Invented, and not as Life, and we resist the temptation to mimic through technology theories of the how and why we were created. Technology is an expression of the will, which is human expression, and has limitations. Ultimately, nature has no limitations, because it is natural.

Scientists will continue to grapple with the unlimited reality of reality.

Poem - imperial urges create

the curia in my heart
wanting to make simple wood into a cross

upright and straight
rather than level unadorned and plain

imperial urges create
golden cities and magnificent churches

but we create out of nothing
emptiness follows emptiness without excuse

Southern California Short Story

He read Candide, and laughed. People stared at him in the library. It was 10 AM. After having this, he walked to Pavilions and bought an expensive coffee, from a detoxed blond, and spilled it on the floor of his car. He drove through the shade of many palm trees. He drove past 3 tall modern buildings, in the restrained style of Miles van der Rohe, the color of bone.

A Spanish pirate was buried where he parked his car, near Back Bay. The dead man's name was José de Gálvez. He had been shot by an arrow in the thigh, and had bled to death. Up on the bluff, under a house foundation, was the remains of a cache of silver on the edge of an Indian burial ground. The ghost of the dead mariner haunted that part of the scrub, and the mud flats of Back Bay.

Sometimes, the ghost would stand on the road, and cause cars to go off the cliff. Teenagers were the best for this. The ghost of Gálvez also caused a small plane to be confused, when he made faint light. The pilot thought the mud flats was the end of a runway, and the pilot was too late to pull up and crashed and died.

The ghost of Gálvez looked at the writer, and wondered how he could hurt the gringo. It was too bad the light was so strong. Gálvez wanted to hurt the gringo who parked over his grave. Anyone who walked on his grave, he knew of it. Wherever he was, it brought him back. Gálvez was doomed to linger here forever. With his ghost eyes, he looked at the writer, and knew the writer would be that way too.

Poem - know the prairie never knows/ never forgets

now dead funeral hole next
to an airport

nobody stuck around to see
if your coffin made it in

all the people who you really loved
dead years ago

we should have our life celebration
while alive

but we can't

we mourn but we don't drink anymore
so we drive

we go out miles to where the prairie shows
stand there

son of the midwest

know the prairie never knows
never forgets

Poem - Some Other Time

watching an innocent pair
of autumn stained clock
hands turn

and hearing the traffic
in the street without
looking at anything

new york you are in
my mind and outside of me
trying to get in

going for a walk
taking a break from mute
white pages

soon it may snow a
new white that will conquer
all the gray

a few flakes will defy
gravity like living forever
over the facades of w 43rd street

-----

To Bill Evans, playing "Some Other Time"

Poem - To My Foolish Heart

Video of Bill Evans playing "My Foolish Heart"
at the piano, NYC 1963

*

hey bill you're breaking mine
as you play 'my foolish heart'

smiling at the same time
of the busting of it

remembering all the doors
passed in and out of

saying hello to such
an unexpected upturned face

and then one day she is gone
no letter unsaid goodbyes

through all this i see
how we can't go back

we only go on
as brave as possible

and then being
that way

as every place always
was embracing us

Poem - The Shore

life is words
words can kill

we are ruled
by the language we acquire

you will never realize
if you are not free of this

you will stay on the shore
and see a horizon

you will have a shack nearby
with an unpaid bill

you will have a girl you loved
who left you

~

la vida son las palabras
las palabras pueden matar

que se rigen
por el lenguaje que adquirimos

que nunca se dará cuenta de
si usted no está libre de este

se quedará en la orilla
y ver un horizonte

usted tendrá una choza cercana
una factura sin pagar

usted tendrá una chica que amaba
que le dejó

poem - simple here

bird droppings
twigs rusted pipe

the ride of the hill is that way
you know your feet

below is earth
above is sky wing white

hint of cloud over
you & bugs old barbed wire

forgetting now
in everything

simple here

well water newspaper
old pipe

Poem - The Nightingale

you do not understand
so i do not understand
there is nothing to understand

*

hep!

these words the mysterious call
of a surreal nightingale

wanting to come in
during the long dark night
when i am half asleep

in fear at those times i choose
not to be unconscious or oblivious

it comes unbidden time and time again
because you have shown me

seeing is lovely
how some deal made
to allow you or i to go

where few are allowed to transgress
certainty dies propellers ejected

steering on and on

------

for Latif

In Charge of the World

there is a cat in a tree
not supposed to be so high in the tree
a little girl calls for the cat to come down out of the tree
the cat thinks it is in charge of the world

there is a well-dressed man in a limo
living a secret agony in the city that never sleeps
everyone fears him and he has the power to ruin lives
the man thinks he is in charge of the world

there is a person who is writing this poem
sun rises over the cat and the man and me
like them i think i am here and i am relatively in control
just enough to be in charge of the world

Poem - i expect things to make sense

i expect things to make sense

with the sunlight i worship not here but 8 minutes into the past

and my very substance borne from an unknown star

exploded billions of years ago & specks of it wandered through trackless space

through an eternity of death


i expect to have certainty

in a place that is as fragile and transitory as it is ridiculous

with the rest of the universe in mind

full of emptiness and unequaled nothing

no sighs no thought no place


how amazing it is to be so different

like one polished gem in the inscrutable throat

of murderous time or a bright illogical mote of dust

that magically arises in the face of

the dread certainty of nothing

--------

Written, written, written -- might not be fixable, but there it is. For JJ. CM

Poem - my good luck shared let us be resolute together

my good luck shared let us be resolute together

here is the morning full of the memories of mahasiddhas

a million letters from the buddhas held up now delivered

padmakara and jesus christ entered like all-day with no mysterious divisions

old leaf royal at my left foot and a pool humbling me with clear water

-------

For Latif and Alpha

Poem - Incomplete Poem to the Mahasiddhas

Incomplete Poem to the Mahasiddhas

(Author: It cannot be done, but like a stroke of lightening on a blue cloudless day, here is the thunder-clap.)

i pray to the mahasiddhas
they laugh

no harm done
give your offerings

we like rocks
we like guts we like wind

trash death
sun moon mold beer

*

mahasiddhas
emanate from jail

mahasiddhas
spring from traffic accidents

mahasiddhas
evolve from old ketchup

*

acinta mahasiddha was in a meeting and found it boring

ayogipa mahasiddha was offered a free bath & laughed

aryadeva saw all the pretty girls from serenity house

babhaha sat next to him and laughed ha ha ha

kilakilapa shared

bhandepa clapped him out

bhiksanapa had a donut

bhusuku came in late

camaripa had on old white shoes

campakapada showed the bums loving eyes

godhuripa had plenty to give away

caurangipa appeared to be whole to the missing

celukapa mute and strong as stone in his chair

kalapa stole my heart

dengipa shushed me

-------

Ah! The result of Sensing a Beautiful Morning & being alone, or these and all the others
1.07.2011

Poem - The Poet

a poem could be written
a thousand ways
and not at all

some of the best he declined
to ravage by fuck death
pen

no false pride in this
you don't know him

i do

Poem - Rework: To the Place

you go to the place
in hip of the narrow valley

not a lamb to the slaughter
nor fools gold rambling

if you go look for the drunk
who slept in the barn

he left incidentals
rotted with bird droppings

you're looking

you're looking
look at you looking

he could be in needles
he could be in a library

he could be crossing a stream
he could be the river

or not place buildings streets
dark windows shine

hell laughing medicated
high arrested shot stabbed

own burned lost forgotten to all
except to your own eyes

that now see above tree branches
in the form of a mute 'X'

*

you feel an apple
in your barn jacket

you take it out and eat it

----

Bennett Valley