Learn Antrasi in 111 Simple Lessons

Lush, friendly and ecologically economical Goa will be the site of your Antrasi hyper-intensive course. We guarantee that no vestige of your native language will remain when you've completed our amazing and life-reorienting, facilitated learning environment. You will be ready to enter the Antrasi social and business strata with the ease and skills needed to succeed.

Bring nothing. All will be provided. From your clothes to your personal scent enhancers; from your dental products to your new and expanded empathic meta-conciousness. We have a success rate unparalleled and unrivaled in scope, depth and, of course, cost.

5 square miles of tranquility enhanced by a defensive perimeter maintained by former special ops units from the world's elite militaries. Our defensive missile system is upgraded yearly and is backed by our own proprietary geo-stationary satellite. Further ease of mind can be enhanced by pharmaceutical products tailored to meet your dreams and aspirations.

Our very special and close ties to the local government and infrastructure are key to your success and enjoyment. We can understand and protect your personal proclivities. And all of this at a cost generated by your own circumstances. So don't wait. Don't hesitate. Your new life is here, waiting. Personal jet and helicopter maintenance at no extra cost.

By the Bay, yet again.

The Parable of the River Child

He walked atip-toed through the river wash. Watching for the new pebbles; fraught. Vigilance alone will break the day's dank breath; placate. He near sang, near chittered from old river's hardness. Did this river child.

He slidded and bounced, asopping. The tingly things blowing by, catching on his sleeve. But he weren't the widow dreamer's boy for naught. Jabbing and diving and finding; filling his pockets with color bright and right. He had a mighty need for half-day shadows. Plucking ochred browns n hollow yellows. Tossing, tossing, tossing back the wrong. And the wrong's a clear thing, not fitting, no.

River child had a duty; bound him tight. River bond awove him to his father's wants and ways. So aleapping and snatching did he take their course. Til the following ended where following always does.

There he placed, one by one, the burden gained; the duty spent. The shackle from his mother's passion; the dowry to his father. He builded, did the river child, what fell from still-born longing. And with each stone placed our lad paled diminished. With one grain uncaught in his blowing pocket, our child was no more.

From the Bay.

Zensationalism, or the Tao of Garlic Sauce

It could've been UFO's over Bridgeport, or fireworks in August, 4:56am. I've always been distracted by ochre. Especially on garden walls. I've climbed steep streets in Barcelona and meandered through narrow passages in Rome. Led merely by a glimpse of ochre. There's a profound life-observation in this somewhere. Akin, I'm sure, to a cantilevered greenhouse roof. It's not always the fantabulous in life that marks its passage. It's neither agony nor ecstasy that I anticipate, but quiet pleasure.

Not a powerful hormonal scent, but a subtle melange from wine. Not the hard lights of studio, but the quieting reflection from a book's page. Entranced, rather than enraptured.

Walking the steep paths of Ydra with no digital enhancement. Listening to pine whistles, but not through a cell. Remembering Paris without an lcd. My bag is filled with cheese and ouzo, not a laptop.

I take trains, simply because I can. Because they're filled with lovers and children. Arguments and sleep. They flow and jerk and stop and start. They speak Hegel and Nora Roberts. They sing folk songs and downbeat. Dance, mope, pontificate. I rarely remember planes. I rarely forget trains. And I think I'm learning to smile.

I'm going out today hoping to find a green caterpillar on a hibiscus petal. I think this will help understand Bach's cantatas. All of them, hopefully. This revelation came over sweet and sour scallops, followed by plum wine. As revelations go, it was a gentle nudge. Not with the pungency of garlic sauce on meatloaf - but that's another meal, isn't it? The hope of finding. Going from here to there and back again.

I like my mangoes straight from the tree. My salsa full of lime juice and hot peppers. Horseradish-sour cream on onion mums. Fresh tomato and parmesan on hot bread. Flour up to my elbows making pasta. The hope of finding. I'm going out today hoping to smell bacon.

Musings on the Big Bang.

By the Bay. Relocated. Clarified. And pondering on the wrongness of the philosophical underpinnings of the Big Bang.

It's our 20/21st Century equivalent of 'the earth is flat'. 'The earth is the center of the universe'. A techno-babble wail that we are mortal, finite and incapable of seeing over the horizon.

But we have extended our boundaries just a bit. A few light-years. We no longer see just a photon but an atom. Now we resolutely declare that there is but one atom in the universe. Our atom. Our very own and proprietary atom. And all of this with a prolonged sigh of relief at our expansive world view. Aren't we amazing?

One cannot take issue with the 'mathematics' that underpin this theory. It's dense and ultimately irrelevant. Within the context of the declarative principle of the theory, that is. The begining of the universe. The start of it all. We can now envision the alpha, and ergo the omega. A finite point in an infinite universe. Our point. Let's copyright it. Find a nice patented logo and make a name for ourselves.

But ...

There was always a yesterday. Always. We can always go one more foot, or light year. There is always a tomorrow. Always. The universe never began. It will never end. We cannot create artificial reefs on which to anchor our inadequacies. It's merely intellectual exercise to curve or bend space if we do so to justify the same narrow centricity that propelled Middle Ages society.

When you begin with such a fundamental flaw as do our sapient fellows - a posteriori confabulation - the Big Bang takes on comic strip proportions. Which is, by the way, the assumed prerogative of our video, pop, two-footed culture. But that's another musing for another day.