Sheriffs' Blotter

Traffic Stops

Several residents and passers-by have been apprehended over the past weeks speeding through the Village Square. Violators who did not repent and pay penance were stoned, as is customary.
 Sheriff's Officers caution that all transgressors can expect similar treatment.

Dangerous Purse

A Hammertown Road resident reported a snake in her front yard. Sheriff's Officers arrived to find a brown ladies handbag in the grass. The bag was taken to the Sheriff's  Office for questioning. When it was determined that the bag was an inanimate object with no serpentine affiliations, it was released to the town thrift shop for relocation.

Bites Prompt Calls for Help

Several Village residents have called 911 Emergency to report mosquito and deer tick bites. The callers feared West Nile and Lyme disease infection, along with other imbalances of bodily humours. Sheriff's Office Safety Chief Ted Tompkins cautioned residents, "911 Emergency calls are not necessary for insect bites. If you feel you have been infected, contact Village Shaman Milo Landsdowne to arrange for cleansing rituals." Villagers are advised to procure the necessary livestock from the town livery before contacting the Shaman. Chickens are available for 172 shekels and goats for 288 shekels. These animals are for ceremonial use only.

Suspicious Luggage

The State Bomb Disposal Unit responded to a call from Irwin's Grocery Market. It seems a suitcase was left near the store's entrance. Fearing the worst, Mr. Irwin called authorities. After the bag was destroyed by a robotically triggered controlled detonation, the Sheriffs found a name tag that lead to the O'Reilly boy, a known trouble-maker around  these parts. He claimed that he used the suitcase to transport soda bottles to the store to collect bottle deposits. Store employees confirmed that O'Reilly did redeem some bottles for deposit money. O'Reilly was caned four times by Sheriff's Officers for being a public nuisance and sent home, to bed, without supper.

Hill People Learn Important Lesson

Upon hearing rumors of ill doings transpiring up the Hill, Sheriffs investigated to find at least a dozen residents of those parts torn limb from limb. "I don't know what devilry they were up to," reported Chief Sheriff Lazlo Backus, "but let that be a lesson to the rest of the Hill People to stay out of that kind trouble."

Odd Visitor meets Village Woman

Betsy Malone, wife of Elder Dondace Malone, of Harmony Lane called 911 Emergency last Tuesday when she discovered a strange man in her utility shed. Sheriff's Officers arrived to find Ms. Malone having coffee in her kitchen with one Mr. Topkoo Alkanor, purported time traveler.  Mr. Alkinor claimed to have arrived from the year 10,146 CE through a rift in the space-time continuum. Officers inspected the shed and found a preter-natural vortex hitherto unknown in these parts. Officer Randy McGillicutty thrust his head into the gyre in order to investigate it. His fellow officers report that his head seemed to disappear from this earthly realm. McGillicutty withdrew his head after a few moments and exclaimed , " I have surely seen wonderments beyond my poor abilities to describe!" Officers were prepared to charge and execute Mr. Alkinor for unauthorized chicanery, but released him to Ms. Malone's custody in exchange for a donation to the Widows and Orphans Fund of several hundred carats of flawless gemstones. Mr. Alkinor was able to produce the precious jewels using a device in his possession. He placed a large quantity of dog feces in the device. Upon triggering the devices function, it began to whirr and pop electrically, emitting a sharp odor of ozone. The device then issued forth diamonds, rubies and emeralds the size of hen's eggs.

Compiled by from the Sheriff's Blotter and Scuttlebutt discussed at the tavern by the Elders.

Silence

I had planned to write today on the need for civility in political discussion on social media. I took off my omnipresent headphones, sat down with pen and notebook and noticed what I perceived to be a brief moment of silence, which got me thinking. Letting sleeping dogs lie, actually but not metaphorically, I began to think, then write, but not speak about silence.

Silence is an illusion, unobtainable. Fans whirr, motors hum, pugs snore, hounds whimper while chasing dream induced..what...let's say wombats.

Sitting here, "in silence" I can hear all those things plus my pulse in my ears. And there is something else, a tone, a hum, a buzz. Tinnitus, it's called, "ringing in the ears." I've heard it can drive some mad. Mine is mild, easily forgotten in the face of the regular media onslaught I feel compelled to subject myself to. I checked and I guess that I perceive my ringing to be about 10,000 hz and about 30 dB. Negligible, really, quieter than "room" sound. I mean, the refrigerator just kicked in at 700 hz and about 40dB.

Sound is vibration. The compression and refraction of a medium through space and time.
The way I see it, hear it, suppose it to be, true silence, the complete absence of sound, is a myth, unobtainable. There is even a school of thought, string theory, that puts forth the idea that everything, all matter and energy is comprised of vibrating strings. Not just everything we can perceive, but unfathomable higher dimensions and perhaps other universes. These strings aren't things that vibrate. They can't be, because all things are made of strings, they say. Things are vibration. Everything is sound; light, heat, earth, fire, air and water. And everything else.

So silence is not golden. Gold is not silent.

I've heard (http://www.radiolab.org/2007/sep/24/) sound described as touch at a distance. We perceive sounds with our minds. The path from vibration to thought is...involved, complex. Vibrations in air move eardrums. Eardrums move the smallest bones in the body, inner ear bones. There are three bones. Two are aptly name hammer and anvil. The third, descriptively called a stirrup, connects to another descriptively named item called the oval window of the cochlea. Vibrations transmitted through this odd, tiny mechanism are propagated through the contents of the cochlea, a briny fluid that is a link back to the salty seas where vertebrate hearing evolved. The twin seas, left and right, bathe tiny hairs that attach to auditory nerve endings. Hairs move in the waves, nerves send impulses to my brain, I hear.

The sounds I hear in silence, I can disregard, one by one. The fans, motors, compressors, sighs, snorts can all be accounted for and ignored. I can put away my pulse, which will be there as long as I am able to perceive sound. All those things accounted for, there is still the sound that is not there, the ringing. It is the present sound of the past. Not caused by hair cells moving, but the opposite. It arises from trampled hair cells beaten down by abuse and neglect, noise of motors, media and mayhem. The hundreds of rock concerts weren't really mayhem, except to the inner ears of the masses. I recall fondly using earplugs to shut out the "room sound" while simultaneously using a helicopter headset to blast the "board mix' through the plugs. 125 dB. I had a meter and checked it myself regularly, back then. As loud as a jackhammer. http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/loudness.html

But, damage done. Those trampled hairs will never get back up. I will never perceive sounds above 12,000 hz again. Not that unusual for someone of my age and experience.The ringing in my ears is artifact of sound and fury, some significant, mostly signifying nothing.

So, to wrap this up, I'll just be quiet.

! O !

! O !

Hwæt!

A fragment.

A citation: Hofstadter, Douglas. (1985). Metamagical themas: Questing for the essence of mind and pattern. This is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself. New York, NY: BasicBooks.

Getting started is hard for me. A complete sentence! The first in this paragraph, not the second. Or third.

In this paragraph, I relate my frustrations with writer's block in the topic sentence. This run-on sentence explains, with mixed metaphors, my ham-fisted use of a self-referential crutch to try to jump-start my productive expression of ideas, which, in this clause, I explain has escaped me for a while now. Imagine a ham-fisted person on crutches trying to jump-start anything!

It might be working. But now I am constricted by this stupid convention of self-reference, which I found in a collection of columns (see citation above) early in 1987.

In early 1987, I found that I wanted to re-invent myself, not for the last time, I relate here. (What a lame attempt to maintain self-referential consistency! At least I used complete sentences in this paragraph. Almost.)

In this sentence, I express my gratitude for the ease of Blogger's ® formatting tools. 

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Wait. Fragments. Wait... Flow breaking. Get a grip. Maybe use dialog to regain narrative consistency.

"So, what you are saying is, by navel-gazing at language you can find a way to express yourself? Isn't that gimmicky and incredibly limiting?" he asked petulantly.

"Yes, but it gives me the opportunity to use big words. I meant to say sesquipedalian
words." he mellifluously retorted. 

"Who is he talking to?" someone asked.

SESQUIPEDALIAN: the quality of being likely to use words like sequipedalian: <sesquipedalian commentator>

El Dorado. Valiant. Had a Valiant once. Cost me a buck. Held together with rust. Back to fragments. Get a grip. Hey, there's a sentence. And another. Damn. So close.

In this paragraph, I attempt bring this ... blog? ... essay? ... rant? ... story? ... whatever... to a close. Seems like an achievable goal. Fragment.

Nope, didn't work. Hey, did you notice that this thing is structured exactly like Homer's Odyssey or Beowulf? I mean, except for character, story, narrative, mythos, rhyme, conflict and pacing.  Otherwise, exactly follows the structure. Beginning, middle, end. Structure. Fragments.

When I write or draw with a pen, pencil or stylus, I find after a few minutes that, I am clutching the implement with so fierce a grasp that you'd think I was writing with a Pygmy Rattlesnake (Sistrurus miliarius), grasping it just behind the jaw hinge (as I was taught to in the Boy Scouts™), instead of using a BIC™ Atlantis™ Retractable Ball Pen. Ooh! What a give-away. Fragments.

Relax. Like fragments. Pens. Words. !