AP September 11th, 2011 Special

An Awesome Press Special Report:

The Day That Freedom Died

A Retrospective on the Decade of Terror

Ten years ago today - plus ten hours precisely, at this commencement of writing - American Airlines Flight 11 impacted the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

I had just begun my final year of high school, and was in my social studies class; our teacher brought us all down to the school cafeteria so we could watch the news live on television (So, yes, I'm one of the "do you remember where you were?" crowd).

We got there just in time to see the second aircraft, United Airlines Flight 175, disappear into the south tower.

What I remember most strongly is what it looked like when Flight 175 hit the south tower. It looked bizarre to me - not at all what I expected of an aircraft that large introducing itself to a structure that massive. It was more like...a soaring bird slipping beneath the surface of water, not even causing a ripple. The face of the building just opened up and the plane vanished inside, leaving only a shadowy structural wound and a cloud of black and red blasting out of the far side.

As young as I was then, I knew clearly that I was seeing history unfold in real-time before my eyes. It was a strange feeling.

The world changed.

I won't pore over it in terrible detail. Speeches were made; war had been declared, and war was declared in turn. Two countries ended up invaded; one rather clearly justified, the other far more muddled; neither of them terribly well handled overall, but then, it's difficult to handle any war well, let alone one so ephemeral as the "war on terror".

Those two wars continue to this day, ten years later. They've drawn down, yes, and visible change has occurred in both nations. Can it be said that they were "won"? Well, in Afghanistan, women and girls can now attend school, drive cars, attain public office, even go outside without requiring a man to escort them. This alone, to me, justifies the effort expent there. But on the other hand, the body that the west went into that country to destroy, the Taliban, made an attack on a coalition base just yesterday that injured almost eighty people.

As for Iraq, well, that's far more of a mess, and one that I'm less familiar with, being Canadian, so I'll let it be. It's beside my point, in any case. I didn't set out to talk about the countries that were invaded in pursuing the war on terror. Rather, I want to talk about the country that was attacked in its beginning.

2, 977 people - just a hair under three thousand, the sum population of many a small town - died on the morning of September 11th, 2001. This morning, ten years later, a memorial was held for them where many people spoke of courage, of rising above adversity, of moving on, and of the enduring spirit of America - and the American way of life.

During his speech on the occasion, Vice President Joe Biden said, among many things, that the September 11th, 2001 attacks were "a declaration of war by stateless actors bent on changing our way of life ... But they did not know us. Instead, that same American instinct ... galvanized a new generation of patriots."

It's a stirring passage, and the meaning is good and clear enough. There's just one problem.

The September 11th, 2001 attacks did change the American way of life.

These changes include, but are not limited to, new government arms such as the Department of Homeland Security, and the Transportation Security Administration; arms of the government of the United States, elected and endowed by her people. Departments whose sole raison d'etre, when you get down to it, is to assume that the American people, and anyone who wants to enter the country, is a terrorist - until proven innocent.

Legislation, such as the Patriot Act. Granting sweeping expansions of law enforcement powers. Easing legal restrictions on deportations of immigrants, legally permitting "roving wiretaps" - tapping any phone, anywhere, without further court permission - and even easing restrictions on foreign intelligence activity within the United States. As of this writing, several aspects of the Patriot Act are still in force.

The AUMF, "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists", wherein on September 14th, 2001 sitting President George W. Bush signed a presidential order allowing for terrorism suspects to be detained as "enemy combatants" - held indefinitely, possibly without charges, in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. Thankfully this died in the Supreme Court in 2008; still, for seven years, the United States Government sanctioned soviet gulag-style 'disappearance'.

These have been the big things, the things that you heard about. But the smaller, slower erosion of freedom has been harder to see - more insidious, quietly edging the free world toward the abyss of police statehood. If you want to see it, just go to your nearest airport. But remember - as soon as you walk in, you're a terrorist until proven innocent.

On September 10th, 2001, you walked into an airport, claimed your ticket, checked your bags, and waited to board the plane. But today? Now you go through medically questionable X-ray body scanners - hoping the person watching you isn't a pervert, like in Colorado. Or perhaps government-sanctioned sexual assault pat-downs like in Chicago, which by the way, are made more aggressive and violating if you opt out of the scanner, as a matter of TSA policy? Oh, and don't forget to take off your shoes, because we know Nike started using Semtex to make the soles last decade. (And should I mention the irony? That Americans going through security now do the same thing muslims do before entering a mosque to pray?)

But these things aren't the worst of it. The worst things of all? So very few people have any problem with these things. Their freedoms are being taken away in the name of so-called 'national security' - and the majority seem happy to sign them off.

This seems a good time to quote from the Declaration of Independence, wherein the people decided that they would have no more of the oppressive rule being imposed upon them by an increasingly distant and disconnected government:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it."

Certain inalienable rights - rights that cannot be compromised or limited. Certain departments of the modern United States Government would perhaps disagree, regardless of their flagrant contravention of the document that inaugurated their nation.

For that matter, one of the founding fathers of the United States, indeed one of the very signatories to the Declaration, Benjamin Franklin, once said something that sums up the past ten years nicely: "He who is willing to trade a little liberty for a little security deserves neither, and will lose both." Still, the American people seem overall all too willing to surrender their rights and freedoms.

It's been ten years since the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the United States. The land of the free, insofar as the government permits; the home of the brave, assuming you have the credentials to be so.

Two countries were invaded. The Taliban was thrown from power and chased into the desert mountains on the Pakistani border. The regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq was torn down, the man himself hunted down and found in a hole in a dirty shed. Osama bin Laden was forced to live in virtual isolation for years, his dreams of a grand 'holy war' against America reduced to sitting around watching old pornography in a windowless concrete tomb - until the SEALs came to take him out. al Qaeda, long since severed from his true command, has since fractured and split across the Middle East and Africa, and is even now fighting amongst itself.

So it seems to me that now would be a good time to reflect on the past ten years. To consider what's been accomplished - and what's been lost in exchange.

Perhaps, just maybe, it's time to scale back the draconian security and return to the kind of freedom and liberty since lost - you know, the freedom and liberty that were a beacon to the world, that were the target of the jealous, envious, small-minded zealots in the first place. Now that it's been so heavily driven home that any attacker will get hit back a hundred times worse, I think the point's been made.

But somehow, I don't think it's going to happen.

Because when you start stripping away freedoms to declare war on an idea, you need to remember that ideas are bulletproof.

If liberty dies? Expect thunderous applause.

And do remember that the price of freedom has inflated a hell of a lot since 1776.

A Better Pagan Meme

We can build it; we have the magitechnology

Please describe briefly your Path:
I walk the Moonlit Path. Sometimes this is under a new moon, and I trip over every uneven stone or errant tree root; other times under a blazing disc of heavens-borne silver, by the light of which I rush onward like a speeding train. Usually somewhere in between, though.

Please describe briefly how you practice it:
To walk the Moonlit Path is not so much a practice to my understanding. It is a decision, to take the road less travelled by (and to thus make all the difference); it is a 'Way' in the eastern sense, not something you do but something you are or become, that in turn influences what you do, how you see, so forth.

When did you first commit to your Path?
I was first exposed to the idea of the Moonlit Path oh, some seven or eight years ago? It was as evanescent to me than as the tangible, corporeal world is to me today. I realized it was open to me, and then chose to walk it, a little over two years ago. Since then, I've been winding my way out of the briar patch I'd long before blundered into, though I haven't cleared the brush and made it to the sweeping fields of Elysia just yet.

How is your practice different now than it was then?
I would not so much call it 'different' as simply better. I've always been at home with 'primal' magic, ever since I played with the wind as a four-year-old; rituals, invocations, temples and sacred icons are well and good, and I understand their point, but I've never thought about magic. From war magic, to protection, to purification, to healing, I've always simply done, near as second-nature to me as breathing.

Is your practice different today than how you thought it would be back then?
To this I would have to say yes, very much so. Back in the early days, I always expected to end up some type of ritual-toting exorcist / holy crusader. These days, after having taken a little time to stew on it, I find I can summarize myself simply: I am a seeker.

Does your Path and core belief system differ now than how it was when you first started?
Absolutely. When I first awakened, in my post-nap grogginess I aspired to a spiritual pursuit almost entirely Christian; to be a 'warrior for god'. Thankfully I outgrew that silliness quickly enough. I drifted about for awhile, simply getting my bearings, until I finally had sharp enough hearing to listen to my first patron, and from there, I suppose now that I consider it, worked on perfecting my ability to speak with those of the upper realms. I gravitated towards the Norse pantheon primarily, and to this day still associate myself with them most readily, but today I call myself quite intentionally an 'equal-opportunity polytheist' - I'm happy to give due respect to, and speak with, deities from the Norse, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Indian, Japanese, and anyone else's pantheons.

What is your heritage and how does this inform your Path?
My heritage, such as I consider it, is Scottish. If my spiritual proclivities are any indication, probably the kind of Scottish that had Viking influence, which may have lent me my inclination towards the Norse pantheon. But for that matter, it may well have nothing to do with it; I can't really say for sure. I've also found, as my exposure to the east via Japan grows, that I have come to find wisdom in Shinto and Buddhism, and I toy with the idea of sitting down for tea with Amaterasu.

What are your main influences for your Path?
My own curiosity, conscience, and the deities I speak to regularly, I suppose. And which way the wind is blowing at the time, metaphorically speaking.

Which do you do more: practice or research?
If by practice we mean ritual, formal spellwork, and so forth, then I definitely research more. I'm constantly in search of knowledge, looking for truths, questioning traditions and 'old ways'. My 'practice' these days, such as it is, is who I am and how I live.

Do you feel that one is more important than the other?
I would contend that they're irrevocably intertwined. Even when only treating 'practice' as formal ritual and spellwork, once needs to expand their knowledge and hone their technique in order to be any manner of a skilled practitioner. And on the other hand, a scholar for scholarship's sake does little save providing library assistants with job security.

What values and ethics are important on your Path and in your practice?
I hold that there are two cardinal values: justice, and freedom. One cannot exist without the other, and only when both are found can a person truly walk their best path. Until then, we forge on towards it.

What sort of cycles do you feel your practice goes through?
Every now and then, typically in a roughly annual cycle, I find myself looking back at who I was at that time the year before, and marvelling to myself that I managed to do anything right. I've been doing this for going on seven, eight years now? I hold it as evidence that I'm still growing wiser, and hope to continue to do so.

What is one of the greatest obstacles or struggles you have had to over come?
The single greatest obstacle I had to overcome? That was the petty little pissant pre-awakening socially-indoctrinated side of me, that tried its damnedest to tell me that I was going crazy, that the deities I spoke to in my mind were just voices in my head, that the idea magic was real was laughable, and that it was all pathetic running-from-the-truth bullshit that was going to come crumbling down around me.

I'm gonna let that sink in for a moment.

Everyone fights this battle, I think, to some degree or another. Unless you can preserve the starfire-bright brilliance that the youngest of children possess, before society (I'm looking at you, public school system) strips them of it and tells them they exist only to do what they're told, pay their taxes, and perpetuate this empty shell of a world we're currently stuck with. I wrestled with that nagging voice in the back of my mind, always piping up to say 'You're crazy! None of it is real!', for years. But slowly, if far more slowly than I would have preferred, those same 'voices in my head' chipped away at it. Telling me things I could never know myself. Answering questions before they were asked. Tapping someone on the shoulder next to me as I sat in class once! (I remember that moment perfectly; I think it may have been the tide turning.)

In the end, in a manner not entirely dissimilar to A Beautiful Mind, that voice went quiet. It's still there, even as I write these words, but it's silent now, sitting in the corner at the school dance, afraid to have dreamed. I hope someday to...I suppose redeem it? Because though it was planted in me to lash me down, it is still a part of me; and I can't really champion the ideals of justice and freedom if I'm willing to leave a piece of myself in chains.

How do you see yourself practicing in ten years?
Ideally, in a perfect world? I see myself as a bit of a wizard king, watching over a revived and renewed world where magic runs about in the streets like excited children, using my power to bring light to the dark places. Barring that, however, I shall continue to walk the Moonlit Path, polishing my ability, honing my wisdom, and biding my time.

How do you incorporate your practice into your life?
Much as my practice is my life, I suppose there are times when it's more actively utilized than others. I typically use it to regularly purify and protect where I live, to heal and protect myself and those I care for, as well as occasionally people I barely know, but see suffering. As well, ever since I really awakened, I can count the number of times I've legitimately gotten angry on one hand (twice). Some people may think me cold, but through awakening I've simply found my center.

Has walking your Path changed you as a person?
If pre-awakened me met me now, he would be in awe, and have no idea whatsoever that we were in any way related. I'm everything he dreamed to be but never truly believed in; just so, given that I was the source of those dreams back then. On that note, here's a fun fact: since the day I've awakened, I have not had (or remembered, for you sticklers) a single dream. I have had vision-like waking dreams (that lovely half-woken state where your mind forgets it's not supposed to see past the veil) three times, though.

Do you consider yourself to be a priest/ess? A witch? A shaman? How so?
Of these three, I would I suppose consider myself a bit of a shaman at times. Over the past three or so years I have added the ability to speak with some elements, in addition to deities. It's still nowhere near the kind of fluency I had as a child, when I could wrap myself in the wind like a blanket without a second thought, but it's something.

Which matters more: getting the vocabulary right or the actual practice of what we are trying to define?
Intent is paramount. Vocabulary can be nice, but in my experience you only really need to word yourself carefully when making contracts with demons. In regard to spellwork, the weave knows what you mean; you simply need to put it in words, as much for your own sake as for that of the magic.

One of the most profound things anyone ever said to you was:
"Yes."
Amazing how the implications, consequences, simple weight of such a small, common word can be nearly world-breaking.

A defining moment on your Path was:
I awoke in the middle of the night to find myself paralyzed and unable to breath, with a shadowy figure standing over me, draining me of my energy. I had only the strength to whisper a call for help, and with a complete and utter lack of any sort of hesitation or caution for her own well being whatsoever, my patron immediately came to my aid, faced down the dark figure, and drove it back through sheer force of will, quite likely saving my life. English, possibly all human language, lacks the words to describe how magnificent that moment was.

Have you ever taken a “leap of faith”?
Yes, and quite literally, at least in the astral sense. More than a few people are surprised I came out of it alive, myself somewhat included.

Please tell us something stupid, reckless or embarrassing you did once in your practice:
When I was about twenty, I - in my eminently superior wisdom - challenged the validity of a decree of an elder deity. I think I was more than a little lucky he was one of the good-natured ones.

What is the most frustrating thing about your Path?
The fact that I now have the power, and I think I have the wisdom, to help make the beginnings of a (modestly) utopian world, and yet the veil restrains so much of that power. My patience has, at times, been tested.

Have you ever been frightened?
Anyone who says otherwise is a fool, a liar, or both. It's not whether you've been frightened, it's of what. For me, probably the possibility of failing to protect those important to me, or worse, having my best intentions end up harming them.

Can you perform ritual without a script?
Can, and have, though whether it would go as well in the future is a different question. I suppose it would depend on for what reason, and who I were performing it with.

Have you ever performed spontaneous magick/spellcraft?
In my case, the question is rather have I ever not? At least in recent memory, all the spellwork I do is spontaneous and off-the-cuff.

What are you still exploring or experimenting with?
Now and then I still wonder whether a little ritual wouldn't be handy as a focusing measure. In raw magical terms, I find myself these days lacking sufficient skill in white magic, specifically healing, though I'm now chatting with a lovely goddess skilled in that regard.

What (or whom) are you the most committed to in your practice and on your Path?
My first patron and I are still together, though our relationship has changed to be a fair measure less stuffy. I am still, as I became when I realized them, committed to my highest ideals of justice, freedom, and bringing these things to as many as possible. As for myself, I always need more wisdom. All the power of the heavens is worth little if you don't understand the proper ways to utilize it.

Ritual tools are convenient (or for some, perhaps necessary) focusing agents for spellwork, and reminders of its pursuit.

Magickal tools are what current modern technology is embarrassingly trying to imitate.

The one thing I can’t do without is music. This and the other fine arts are one of the few things still close to how things were before.

Seeking personal power is to be judged based on the intentions behind it.

Politics and my Path are diametrically opposed. Politics lead to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to me opening a can of whoop-ass on deities behaving badly.

One thing you wish people would understand about your Path and/or practice is:
One thing? Well, okay. That the gods are not infallible, on-high beings of supreme power and wisdom. They're just 'those who went before'. They still make mistakes, and they still learn, just like we do; for that matter, some of us still teach them things sometimes, something I know from personally having done so.

Do you teach?
Formally? I teach Japanese. In a few years I may teach English. But will I ever teach magic? Perhaps, but probably only once I've assembled some peers who will tell me if/when I'm being a complete twit.


What do you feel is the role of clergy in modern Paganism and Heathenism?
That depends on what you mean by clergy. Clergy like bishops, priests and monks, as in the christian church? If they are to be had at all, then they are advisors. But elders and seniors in the arts? They can teach, and guide, but ought also remember that age is not necessarily proportional to wisdom.

When the Veil (or Hedge!) is thin, how does that feel to you?
I'm going to expound a little bit here. When I meditate - be it before I sleep, while on buses on the way to school, so forth - I have my eyes closed, and I don't so much see or hear the world as feel it, the energy currents of it rushing around me. I 'see' the radiance, the water-paint colors and bright sunshine that yearn to be known. And then I open my eyes, and I look around, and everything is gray. The colors are weak, washed-out. The sunlight strains toward its true radiance. It is by this, if nothing else, that I know that the world we live in now is only half of what it should be. When the veil thins, I see color, I hear melodious pitch, I smell warm fresh-baked bread on a bright blue-skied spring day.

The difference between these two worlds is, at times, heartbreaking.

What entities do you work with most? (ancestors, gods, fae etc)
I spend most of my time conversing with and working alongside deities, though I also chat with the elements (most specifically wind and water). Perhaps to my discredit, I've never met any dragons, though I hope they come out of hiding if I ever get started on the world I dream of.

What is your relationship with the Land?
I feel its sorrow, disappointment, at times narrowly-restrained rage. I hear the melancholy battlecries as Terra makes clear to humanity its hubris through her wrath, while at the same moment weeping for those lost to make her point. I feel the pain of roadside trees with their branches ingrown for the sake of city planners' aesthetic; carry with me, at the moment, the energy of three trees that were maliciously torn down because the people who 'owned the land' (there's some irony) thought it was a good idea at the time. I intend to plant them when I find a proper home, a place where they will be cared for, treasured and respected, if occasionally stung by a misplaced climbing foot.

The most important aspect / main purpose of ritual is:
The same as the most all magic: intent. Beyond that, it's all smoke and roleplay. If you're doing ritual just for the sake of 'playing at magic', you're in the wrong field. If you're using 'ritual' to get impressionable high school girls to take off their panties, then not only are you in the wrong field, but you have an appointment with my sword.

Now, if you're using ritual to enhance and focus magic to a greater purpose, to bring together a group in common cause and harmonize their powers into a greater whole than any of them would be apart? That's what I'm talking about.

What is the purpose of divination/dowsing (or whichever form of augury you use)?
Wisdom seeking, one way or another, as I see it. Either to have a question answered, or for the divination itself to tell you nothing, and by which say that you need to find out for yourself. I have a set of runes that love to chat with me and will gossip about all manner of things. I also have a Rider-Waite Tarot set, that flat out refuses to give me the time of day unless I ask it a question that's legitimately important; when I do, however, it tells me everything I need.

What was the most difficult book you ever read? (Either difficult to understand or hard to face what it said or both)
Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings. I, or perhaps the book itself, refused to read beyond each individual chapter until I was sure I had understood an important aspect of it.

It took me two years to finish.

What book do you recommend the most to others?
Again, the Five Rings. It is so much more than a book on swordsmanship; one need only listen to what it says. The wisdom that Musashi hit me over the head with through this book stays with me even at this very moment.

What is you favourite podcast (if any) and favourite blog (other than your own)?
I don't well attend particularly many podcasts or blogs (not even my own), but...my favorite podcast is probably the Penny Arcade / PvP Dungeons & Dragons podcast, specially presented by Wizards of the Coast™ (hilarity ensues). As for blogs, I don't read that many, but I found this whole bit via my sister's, so I'll plug that I suppose (http://tigerlilycottage.net).

If you could impart only one last piece of wisdom or knowledge, or share one experience with the world at large, what would it be?
Tennyson said it best:
"Though we are not now that which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will; to strive, to seek, to find - and not to yield."

Is there an additional question you would like to see here? What is it? (please also answer)
- Do you think it matters to be a practitioner of a recognized path (Wicca, Asatru, etc)?
This is a personal question to me, as I am not a follower of a 'recognized' path; I've always made my own, regardless of how crazy it could make me look to others. For that matter, this has influenced, however slightly, some of the answers I've given here.

To me, as a seeker, the answer has to be no. There is no 'one truth', save perhaps that in the end all paths lead to the same place. This is why I lend credence to all pantheons, denominations, and schools (though I do not turn a blind eye to the methods these may choose to employ). One needs to find 'the path' in the way that is true to them, no matter how storybook or ridiculous it may seem to another.

Please finish this meme with a picture, image or photograph of some sort:

Awesome Press Special Report: RealID

To Make A Real Omelette, You Need To Break A Few Anonymous Eggs

It’s now been approximately 40 hours since Blizzard Entertainment announced their intention to deploy their RealID feature on the internet forums of all their forthcoming game franchises.

A quick summary: RealID is a feature that was recently introduced to accompany the long-awaited ‘Battle.net 2.0’, and allows players to create friend lists based on their specific Battle.net accounts, rather than game-specific handles, so that they can keep in touch across multiple games with ease.

It’s a convenient feature, and one that people could leave alone if they weren’t interested.

The trouble is, Blizzard then turned around and decided to deploy this feature on their forums. This attaches a person’s Battle.net account to their forum posts, and displays their real names instead of an alias on any forum post they make. The same name that’s on their driver’s license, birth certificate, insurance cards, and so forth.

This unto itself isn’t the issue. The problem is that this display of their names is being made mandatory – if you post on the forum, your name is displayed. And since these will be publicly accessible forums, this means those names are now there for the entire internet to see.

Let me relate to you briefly the tale of Julien Barreaux. A young French man who was playing the online shooter Counterstrike, and was angered when his online character was killed by another player with a knife strike. So Julien spent seven months tracking the other player down, traveled to his home, and tried to kill him with a knife strike – that missed his heart by an inch.

He had managed to track him down and attack him with nothing but an online game alias to start with. Blizzard’s new forum feature is going to give anyone who needs anger management a full name.

As an example of the implications: a Blizzard employee posted his first and last names on their forum to prove a point. In a matter of a few hours, some industrious people with free time and Google had taken this name and returned with his home address, phone number, and the specific office where he worked.

They’re now enabling this to be done to anyone, and apparently they expected people not to have a problem with it. I think it can be summarized thusly:

Blizzard, are you out of your $&!#ing gourds?

On the North American World of Warcraft forum alone there is a discussion on the subject that has reached 40,000 posts – over 2,200 pages. A few computer savvy members had simple programs parse the thread for unique posters, to get a better figure of the actual number, and came up with a ratio of 2.5 posts per person.

This means that, from a single group among the shyest, least likely to speak out, most easy-going people on the continent – in less than two days – 16,000 people have voiced their opinion. And though I’m less familiar with their figures, similar discussions are present and number in the thousands of posts on all the language-specific European forums as well.

The response is unmistakably negative.

And given the typical predilection of the gamer community to simply stay silent entirely, the number of silent votes against this new policy could potentially be in the hundreds of thousands.

It was said, some time ago, on those very same forums, that the only thing that would ever manage to bring down World of Warcraft was Blizzard itself – and evidently they’ve decided to make a go of it.

Alexander Kean, Editor of the Awesome Press, is a university student studying Applied Linguistics with a focus on the ways different cultures approach issues, and wonders how any board of directors could be #!*$ing dumb enough to ever think mandatory real names on the internet was a good idea.

Vindication

Yesterday, I decided that I was going to start playing with girls' heads.

By this, I mean that I decided that whenever I saw a girl that was sufficiently cute in my estimation, that I would look at her eyes as she walked by or steal lengthy glances at her if we were standing around somewhere. If they looked back, I would meet their eyes, keep staring, and after three to four seconds, smile just slightly.

This is colloquially known as "the green light glance".

I'm justifying this rakish behaviour to my conscience by taking the following stances: I have no ill intentions (to be precise, I have none at all, other than perhaps to appreciate a pretty face), and I would personally be very flattered, and my day brightened, if one of these self-same girls were to do this to me.

So yesterday, I started tossing out the hooks.

Today I got my first bite.

I was standing around the Billings Bridge bus station waiting to transfer, and noticed a cute asian girl coming up the stairs; offhand I'd call her a 7, maybe 7.5. She glanced toward me as she topped the stairs, our eyes met, and I kept staring as she walked past.

She kept her eyes locked to mine as she walked by; I don't think her head could have turned any further over her shoulder. (Suddenly the one scene from Memoirs of a Geisha pops into my head. I don't think I'm just that good yet.)

After about four to five seconds I smiled, and so did she, in that oh-so-cute and mildly sheepish way, before she went and sat down across the room (proceeding to steal long glances at me for the next five minutes).

I tread the moonlit path.

~~~~~

On the other side of things, I made my Japanese Sensei laugh so hard she almost fell out of her chair today.

I'd can't really recall ever having seen an asian person actually turn visibly red in the face, but after I made my class presentation, she was the color of beets.

This in hand, I predict that her teaching me Keigo is the worst thing she could have ever done. It's not that I now end everything I say with de gozaru. No, no, that would be too simple.

Let me give you an example of how I unloaded the Keigo Combo at the end of my presentation:
"After that I found out about the JET Programme. I moved in with my sister in Ottawa and started attending university studying linguistics."

How I could have written it:
"Sono ato de, JET Programme wo hakken shimashita. Ottawa e hikkoshite, oneesan to sunde itte, daigaku de gengogaku wo benkyou shite haiteimashita."

How I actually wrote it:
"Sono toki no ato de, JET Programme wo hakken itasun de gozaimashita. Ottawa e ohikkoshi itasun de gozatte, aneue to sunde orite, to daigaku de gengogaku wo benkyou itasun de gozattekara ohairi itasun de gozaimashita."

My Sensei could not speak after I delivered this finish.

I nearly got a standing ovation for it.

After class ended, I caught Sensei in the hallway and called out "oshitsurei itasun de gozaimasu!".

She turned around, walked back to my end of the hall, and we ended up chatting about the bit for five minutes as she took the long way to her office. I was that awesome.

Just thought I'd share.

Ja de gozaimasu ne!

Turn The Page

You’re plodding merrily along one day and then you get struck by a fully-loaded, speeding Pepsi truck. Three to one odds say you fly more than sixty feet.

Alternately, you’ve got a smile that competes with the sun for brightness; like the five year old that just climbed the biggest hill they’ve ever known for the first time, and then a strong gust of wind sends you sprawling down said hill, rolling you through thorn brambles, until you splash to a stop muddy, bruised, and bleeding in a cold stream at the bottom.

Now that we have something in common, I can introduce myself.

My name is Masaru Atsureki, or it would be (or may end up being) if/when I turn fully Japanese. This is the name I would choose for myself, if given the option; it means “to rise above adversity”.

Odds are you know who I really am anyway if you’re reading this - unless you’re starting at the beginning, reading this from six years in the future, wondering how it came to be that western-world celebrity uber-culture and the Chinese Communist Party were both single handedly torn apart by one man. If so, well, then you should also know my name already, now that I think about it.

The phenomenon with which I have opened this journal is a happening which has perpetually defined my life. I have long since stopped trying to count the number of times I’ve been blown off of a hill I’d just managed to climb, down into the cold painful ditch at the bottom by an unforgiving wind. If I were to guess, I would say 73.

It was not until recently, however, that I finally discovered the single word which encapsulates the entirety of this event: Otome.

It is a word in the Japanese language. If you peruse a typical J<->E dictionary, you will find that it carries the meaning “maiden”. This is because a dictionary doesn’t tell you whether the word you’re looking for is conjugated or not; this meaning, however, is not entirely unrelated to what I’m about to explain.

You see, in the world of the aspirant Geisha, before they even become Maiko, they are Shikomi. During this period a girl will be taught the arts; song, shamisen, and if she’s particularly promising, the lovely fan dancing for which Geisha are so well known. It is with the fan dancing training with which we are concerned.

While learning a dance, if a girl begins to make too many mistakes or fails to grasp it in reasonable time, her teacher may say to her “Otome!”. If this occurs, the student immediately stops, bows to her teacher, and silently leaves the school. The thing about it is, though, that she is not allowed to return; receiving an Otome is tantamount to expulsion. Her oneesan and other patrons have to arrange to meet her teacher and quite literally beg her to take the student back.

This “Otome” is the imperative conjugation of the verb “Otoru”, which means to be inferior. Yes, Japanese has a verb-form of “to suck” – this is one of the reasons why we love it. Under the connotations of this use, the direct translated meaning of the word as “maiden” oddly fits, as the aspirant girl is basically declared to be a hopeless, unskilled, unexceptional girl by receiving the word.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, we can really dig into it.

~~~~~

I recently received one hell of an otome.

The specific context is unimportant, because it has occurred to me that this happens to everyone at least once, and I imagine they don’t go through exactly the events that I did in order to reach it. The effect it has on a person, however, I expect to be far more relative.

Something will happen to you. The what, why, and how are likely unique to you; I’m not going to get into it.

The key is that it will wake you up. Suddenly, you’ll realize that your life is a faded, colorless shell of what you thought it was. You’ll realize that you’re not actually happy at all. You’ll note that something is missing, or has been lost. But there’s more, you see.

It’s not that you realize that you’re unhappy. You’re not unhappy; you’re just not happy. On a scale of -1 to 1, you’re at 0. But this is alright; most people in the world today are. Hell, most of them have been taught only to strive for a zero-state, that it’s the best they can hope for or all that they deserve out of some misguided zealotry towards self-affliction or some wrong in the past over which they owe someone they’ve never known.

This is why, when a lot people get this wake-up, they sit up and blink a few times, then go back to sleep. Other people wake up and fly into a panic because their comfy bubble has been burst, and they start flailing around for the first thing they can grab hold of. Call it a life crisis, if this gives you a clearer idea what I’m talking about.

Some people try to fill the hole with money. Some people try to fill the hole with God. Some people try to fill the hole with the filling of holes, if you catch my drift. More rarely, some people don’t try to fill the hole at all, instead opting to jump into it; sometimes they succeed, sometimes not.

I’m not passing judgement here; at least, not this time. I’m just fluffing the context pillow.

Some other people, however, do none of these things. Rather, when they wake up, they shake their head clear and then do something very, very crazy.

They start to use it.

Bear in mind that this is “rare” under a subject pool of nearly seven billion. It’s entirely possible that you’re one of these people.

Really, the fact that you’re reading this speaks to your insight already.

Only half of the preceding sentence was bull%$&# pretension; the other half is incontrovertible truth.

I happen to know intrinsically that I’m one of these people. You may not be as lucky as I am, or then again, you may be more so. Most of the universe is subject to interpretation.

So, you may be asking yourself; if I’ve awoken from my social robotics and become truly ‘self-aware’ rather than panicking and buying a new corvette, what the hell am I supposed to do with it?

It’s a good question.

I don’t have your answer.

Well, I could always suggest one, but it would only be partially informed; and besides, my telling you what to do with yourself isn’t much better than your just chugging along as you were to begin with (though it is a little). I have a saying: when you start to believe that you need to make someone else’s decisions for them in order to help them, you have become the problem.

What I will do, however, is smack you upside the head if I see you just trying to go back to sleep rather than making a path towards your true ideal potential. Contrary to popular misinformed belief, not making a decision is not in fact a decision. Put a more analytical way, dividing by zero doesn’t equal zero; it leaves what you tried to divide unchanged.

Granted, this smacking assumes you’re someone I know. If you’re reading this from Australia, then you need to work on that reach or buy yourself a tennis racket.

~~~~~

I, however, have decided to tread the Moonlit Path.

Well, that is, once I find the damn thing. (Cue Zen: “You have been walking it all along, Grasshopper.”)

The ironic part of my search, however, is the two people that I’m taking my initial guidance from to start on the way.

On the eastern side, we have Mineko Iwasaki; the greatest Geisha Japan has had since the Second World War. After apprenticing directly under the Iemoto, pretty much the highest authority the Geisha have, she became a legend by her mid-twenties. She then turned around and retired at 29, the height of her career, in order to force change upon that world. In doing so, she wonders whether she may have accidentally set the world of the Geisha to its doom.

On the western side, we have Neil Strauss; the greatest Journalist / Pickup Artist…well, to date, I suppose. After learning from all the top gurus of the world of pickup, he became a legend after less than two years in the game. He then turned around and started writing books about it, in order to bring salvation to loveless men the world over. In doing so, he wonders whether he may have accidentally set the entire world to its doom (after a fashion).

When it comes to using two people as signposts for the Moonlit Path, I figure I could do far worse.

For good or ill, I’ll try to put to words the important happenings here. I don’t claim that this journal will always hold great philosophical insight or spiritual truth (at least not the way I do in person). I do promise it to be full of snark, perhaps the occasional bit of drama or rage for flavor. I will try not to let it be boring.

So, we’re off to the races. Hajimemashite, ne?