Category Archives: INSIDE THE BOOK

Inside the book, Vermeer: Portraits of A Lifetime. Analysis of all the paintings of Johannes Vermeer. The book reveals for the first time that the women featured in the paintings of Johannes Vermeer were members of his own family, his daughters, his wife and mother-in-law, Maria Thins.

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WE’RE ALL MAD HERE

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CHESHIRE CAT

“I suppose you are right Mr. Holmes. It is difficult, if not impossible, to stay apace of your ability to remain logical in the face of a situation which is so absurdly enigmatic. You are proposing that the philosophical paradigm of reality should be considered of equal importance with fiction. How can you ever solve a criminal case, your occupation, if every piece of hard evidence could be a contrivance of imagination on the part of the investigator or of the criminal?”, said Mr. Dodgson.

“Quite the contrary”, I said. “But rather than keeping to my methods alone, let me ask you what meaning you attribute to the following passage in your book”, I said, turning to the page which described in the encounter between Alice and the Cheshire Cat.

“Let me read your own words to you.”

“…she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she

thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she

felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know

whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider.

‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you

tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where–‘ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

‘–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long

enough.’

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question.

‘What sort of people live about here?’

Sherlock Holmes Audio on AUDIBLE.COM and iTUNES‘In THAT direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives

a Hatter: and in THAT direction,’ waving the other paw, ‘lives a March

Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad.

You’re mad.’

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on ‘And how

do you know that you’re mad?'”

“So, Mr. Dodgson, let me pose the same question to you that young Alice asked of the chimerical cat in your own story: how do you know whether you are mad or not mad? How would you satisfy yourself that I am not mad? How do we know that everyone is mad or not mad?”, I said, rising from my chair to place the manuscript upon the sideboard. 

I refilled my pipe once again, in anticipation of the protracted debate that was sure to follow on the heels of these profoundly, absurd, yet existential queries and arguments.

Mr. Dodgson did not seem the least bit nonplussed by my insinuation  regarding his sanity, or the sanity of all. Rather, he thanked us very cordially for our hospitality, rose from his chair and reached the door to exit the apartment. As he reached the door he turned back to me. 

“Mr. Holmes, I will leave the resolution of this mystery entirely in your very capable hands. If anyone were able to solve the questions you pose to me, I assure you that I am not that man. Neither are any of the mentors whom I have studied, including Sir Isaac himself. I trust that you will be kind enough to inform me of your eventual success, if such is possible. Good day to you, gentlemen”.”

Excerpted from the book SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE, by Lawrence R. Spencer

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Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek EVER

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THIS IS THE FIRST PAGE OF A VERY EXCELLENT ON-LINE “COMIC BOOK”  ABOUT NIKOLA TESLA.  READ THE ENTIRE THING HERE:  Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived – The Oatmeal

Additional notes from the author:

  • If you want to learn more about Tesla, I highly recommend reading Tesla: Man Out of Time
  • Also, this Badass of the week by Ben Thompson is what originally inspired me to write a comic about Tesla. Ben’s also got a book out which is packed full of awesome.
  • There’s an old movie from the 80s on Netflix Instant Queue right now about Tesla: The Secret of Nikola Tesla. It’s corny and full of bad acting, but it paints a fairly accurate depiction of his life.
  • The drunk history of Tesla is quite awesome, too.
  • X-rays: just to clarify, Tesla did not discover x-rays, but he was one of the early pioneers in its research.
  • Cryogenic engineering: I’m referring to the cryogenic engineering that has to do with using liquified air to cool a coil and reduce its electrical resistance (Patent No. 11,865), not freezing people and waking them up in the future so they can fight Wesley Snipes.
  • Transistor: Tesla’s influence on the modern transistor can be found in patents 723,188 and 725,605. (a better explanation here)
  • Radio: Tesla was the nicest geek ever until he decided to sue Marconi a few years later. 8 months after Tesla died, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Marconi’s patents on the invention of radio. So Tesla eventually won that battle, although he was dead by then.
  • Tesla VS Edison: I could write a novel on the differences between Tesla and Edison, but seeing as how this comic is already huge I decided to leave many things out. For instance, Edison killed cats and dogs, but Tesla loved animals and had a cat as a child. Originally Tesla wanted to be a poet, but after getting zapped by static electricity from his kitty he was inspired to study the effects of electricity. One could vaguely construe that Tesla’s cat was responsible for the second industrial revolution, which arguably makes it the most awesome cat who ever lived. 
    Edison believed that fossil fuels were the future and that there were enough resources in South America to provide for the next 50,000 years. Tesla believed that renewable energy sources like hydroelectric, solar, and wind power were the future. This is remarkable because in the 1890s there was no such thing as “going green,” so Tesla’s ideas on conservation were very forward-thinking at the time.  (From OATMEAL)
1001 THINGS TO DO WHILE YOU'RE DEAD, ART, INSIDE THE BOOK

BE A POOKA

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Excerpt from the book “1001 THINGS TO DO WHILE YOU’RE DEAD”

# 497 — BE A POOKA.

“According to legend, the “pooka” or “púca” is a deft shape-shifter, capable of assuming a variety of terrifying or pleasing forms, and may appear as a horse, rabbit, goat, goblin, or dog. (See Footnote) [i]

If you haven’t seen “Harvey”, the famous Hollywood film starring James Stewart, you missed a delightful treat.

The main characters in the film are a gentle, alcoholic bachelor named Elwood P. Dowd and his “invisible” best friend named Harvey. Harvey is a Pooka. He is an invisible 6’ 3” tall rabbit.

The two friends go everywhere together and carry on conversations in front of strangers, much to the dismay of the people they encounter who can’t “see” Harvey. Like most spirits, Harvey and his buddy Elwood are ridiculed and persecuted.

They think Elwood is “crazy” and decide to commit him to a psychiatric hospital so he can be “cured” of his “delusion” that he has an 6’ 3” tall rabbit friend.

Oddly and ironically, the word “psyche” mean spirit and “ology” means “to study”. Therefore, psyche-ology should be the “study of the spirit”.

Sadly, psychiatrists, and the military governments that pay them, do not study or acknowledge the existence of spirits. Their only interest is to “control” the “population”.

Therefore, they tell everyone that a human being is a body, and ONLY a body. They also tell everyone that their ability and awareness comes from their brain – which is a piece of meat inside the skull that conducts electrical messages from YOU, the spirit, to the rest of the body.

Now that you are living outside of a body, it is obvious that government psychiatry is a scam and a criminal activity. It has nothing to do with spirits, except to disable and destroy them.

In the movie, the “therapy” for Harvey’s buddy Elwood was to give him psychiatric pharmaceutical drugs which would make him come to his “senses” and make him “see reality”. “Seeing reality” means you are “cured” of your “delusions”, i.e. of having a friend like Harvey.

Fortunately, Harvey and Elwood were able to escape from the psychiatric drug pushers and lived happily ever after as best friends.

Unfortunately, millions of children and adults on Earth are not so lucky. In the US millions of kids are given Ritalin and millions of adults are given antidepressant drugs to help them “see reality”, i.e. become a mindless robot without any ability to imagine or create their own reality.

Of course, the reason these people are depressed to being with is because they have already seen too much of reality.”

FOOTNOTE: 

[i]  Origins of the Pooka began a few thousand years back, the Pooka was originally a central European god known as the Boga, a nature god similar to the Greeks’ Pan.

Some etymologists claim that the Slavic word Bog was derived from Boga. Bog of course, is the Slavic name for the Almighty, and is the predecessor of the English word God.

You might find it amusing to tell your
Christian friends that every time they invoke the name of God, they are, in fact, praying to a great horny rabbit.   The Púca (also Pooka, Phouka, Púka, Glashtyn, Gruagach) is a creature of Irish and Welsh myth.

It is one of the myriad of fairy folk, and, like many fairy folk, is both respected and feared by those who believe in it.   According to legend, the Púca is an adroit shape changer, capable of assuming a variety of terrifying forms. It may appear as an eagle or as a large black goat (its name is a cognate of the early

Irish ‘poc’, ‘a male goat’ and it lends its name to Puck, the goat-footed satyr made famous in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream), but it most commonly takes the form of a sleek black horse with a flowing mane an glowing yellow eyes.  The Púca is considered by many to be the most terrifying of all the creatures of faery. Not the slightest reason is its appearance, but it is its powers that are most feared.

It is said to waylay travelers and others about at night, and if it is able to toss them onto its back, it will, at very least, provide them with the ride of their lives, from which they will return forever changed. A similar creature, the Aughisky  (Water-horse), will allow itself to be saddled and ridden, but if it is ever taken next to a river or pond, it will carry its hapless rider into the water and rip him to pieces.

The Púca has the power of human speech, and has been said to call those it feels have slighted or offended it out of their homes for a ride. If they fail to appear, it will tear down fences, scatter livestock, and create general mayhem.  Certain agricultural traditions surround the Púca. It is a creature associated with Samhain, the third Pagan (Celtic, Wiccan)

Harvest Festival, when the last of the crops is brought in. Anything remaining in the fields is considered “puka,” or fairy-blasted, and hence inedible. In some locales, reapers leave a small share of the crop, the “púca’s share,” to placate the hungry creature. Nonetheless, November Day (November 1) is the Púca’s day, and the one day of the year when it can be expected to behave civilly.  In some regions, the Púca is spoken of with considerably more respect than fear; if treated with due deference, it may actually be beneficial to those who encounter it. The Púca is a creature of the mountains and hills, and in those regions there are stories of it appearing on November Day and providing prophecies and warnings to those who consult it.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the Púca has succumbed to the disembowelment which has been the fate of so many other powerful mythological creatures. Contemporary media have reduced it to a harmless, shy, and slightly demented garden-gnomish weevil eater.

ALIEN INTERVIEW BOOK, FREE ADVICE, INSIDE THE BOOK, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

AN ALIEN VIEW OF BANKERS

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— Excerpts from the Top Secret military transcripts published in the book ALIEN INTERVIEW, edited by Lawrence R. Spencer:

“”The banks are operated covertly as a on-combatant provocateur to covertly promote and finance weapons and warfare between the nations of Earth.  Warfare is an internal mechanism of control over the inmate population. The purpose of the senseless genocide and carnage of wars financed by these international banks is to prevent the beings of Earth from sharing open communication, cooperate together in activities that might enable people to prosper, become enlightened, and escape their imprisonment.”

“…artificially created incidents are being forced upon the human race by the operators of the mind-control prison system. The ‘prison guards’ will always promote and support oppressive or totalitarian activities of beings on Earth.  Why not keep the inmates fighting between themselves?  Why not empower madmen to run the governments of Earth?  The men who run the criminal governments of Earth mirror the commands given them by covert thought-controllers of the “Old Empire”.”

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