loopcircus

The Chool Bus (preface):

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: In the years of our lord 2024-25 the Loopcircus blog roared along with consistent weekly glimpses into our “Hot Springs or Busk (HSoB)” travels. This was a settled workflow, quite manageable, rendering weekly 4-10 minute posts and illustrative graphics (thanks to various AI image generation tools). The posts were accompanied by audio versions of the text in narrative podcast form. Presently, a few developments have altered our expectations post-HSoB. 1.) Since we have a perfectly serviceable set of vocal folds, we can’t continue to justify maintaining the AI voice-track crutch. 2.) The current creative focus is thus: Instead of brief snapshots of various topics, we’re aiming to create a long-form narrative, eventually cobbled together in novel form (audio & print). And 3.) We’ve shifted gears in our travels, where the original goal was to visit each of the 48 contiguous United States, a blog post for each (several for Florida… of course). And now, we’re letting a bit of moss grow under our feet, making travel decisions determined by favorable Van-Life weather.

And so, we’re currently approaching week #4 with the new project, and we’re finding those aimless moments of formless drifting, some call it “writer’s block” where, at the end of what could have been a productive day, we reflect with a bit of slothful guilt that nothing of consequence had been produced. This is anathema to your typical Type-A personality, no matter HOW retired i think i am. So, this morning, it hit me. In those heady days when we had a weekly publish deadlines (a mere four weeks ago), things got done. In fact we were able to work so far ahead of deadlines to be three to six weeks ahead of publishing targets. Of course, this provides more time for reflection and review, and that’s a good thing as it’s hard to catch mechanical errors when the work is rushed. Anyway, we decided to roll this narrative out as a Loopcircus serial. Many fine works got their public introduction thusly. Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray comes to mind, among others, Twain, Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Joyce, etc.. 

So, we’ll get back to weekly postings with an eye toward minimizing the use of artificial intelligence tools. Starting with the voice tracks. We’ve decided to fall back to tracking my own voice for the audio supplements… AI will be removed from the workflow in that regard. That said, my graphics talent is right up there with Kurt Vonnegut’s (if you know, you know). So, we’ll continue to enlist a robot’s assistance for the weekly post’s “featured images”. We’ll engage a human artist should the finished product ever make it to professional publication. 

And now… without further adieu… a brief introduction: 
In this story, the eminent and amiable Professor Mork Thompson (Professor T.) and his bandmates, known as “The Forks” in their youthful heyday… wander around United States of America indulging a preternatural interest in human nature. This shared interest inspires a question which eventually earns Professor T. a lucrative research grant. Early on, Professor T. recruits a young cowboy and recent graduate of the University of Wyoming for research assistance and aid de camp. Buck Wellstone, whose unhurried country gentility and forthright attitude adds contrast to the sometimes naive and uptight countenance of the former grunge guitar flogger/songsinger, Mork Thompson. On the back roads and freeways of this vast nation, The Forks bear witness to many sometimes perilous, sometimes awkward, sometimes comic adventures that culminate with resolution in a nagging, ongoing inquest/lawsuit concerning Professor T.’s alleged Title IX violations brought by his long-time administrative assistant.

Okay… back to the weekly posts, back to appeasing the Type-A gods. Please join us checking in on the adventures and misadventures of Mork T. and the Forks as they make their way around our precariously vacillating experiment in pluralistic democracy, searching for “the fibrillating heart of our divided nation”.

May whatever you call the infinite mystery of existence swoop in and help us all.

Onward through the fog… Rohlfie

This Land: Ohio 

ED Comment: Dear Loopers, let's talk about this AI revolution. Everyone's up in arms about robots stealing our jobs, but truth told, it's not ALL bad. We at loopcircus, we're using this AI stuff like a painter uses a brush, you know? It's a tool, not a replacement. Sure, we messed up Ohio and Iowa, but hey, that's just human error. We're not some soulless machines cranking out stories like a factory. We're still here, flesh and blood, trying to make sense of this crazy world. And if that means confusing cornfields with buckeyes? Well, that's just the price you pay for being a human in the digital age. 

Cheers... Loopcircus

Anyway, Ohio, sprawls across the American midsection like a contented hippopotamus. It’s a place where the sky is often as vast and indifferent as the soul of a Midwestern farmer, and where the earth is a rich, loamy tapestry, perfect for growing corn and disillusionment.

Hot springs? You’re kidding, right? This is Ohio, not Iceland. We’ve got hot flashes in July and frozen toes in January, but hot springs? No… not here.

Colleges? Ohio is littered with them, like fallen leaves in autumn. There’s Oberlin, a place where young people learn to play their chosen instruments and protest injustice with equal fervor. Then there’s Ohio State, a behemoth of higher education, where they churn out lawyers, doctors, and accountants like sausage. And don’t forget Kent State, a place where history was made, or rather, unmade.

Cultural landmarks? Well, after being upstaged by Rock n Roll’s Hall of Fame, there’s The Works at Newark, a place where they used to turn sand into dollar bills and now they turn sand into glass. It’s like alchemy, but with less magic and more pottery. And then there’s Victorian Village, a quaint little dollhouse of a neighborhood where time seems to have paused, like a stuck record on a dusty gramophone. All of this and much much more. After all, Cleveland does indeed, rock.

Ohioans are a singular breed. They’re as tough as a worn-out plow and as friendly as a puppy. They’ll share their last beer with you, but don’t expect them to beat around the bush. They call ‘em like they see ‘em, these folks. The weather? A fickle mistress. The economy? A roller coaster without the safety bars. And the brain drain? Well, let’s just say some of Ohio’s brightest bulbs prefer the cosmopolitan coasts.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park is Ohio’s piece of nature’s playground, a patch of green in a sea of cornfields. It’s very pretty, for sure… trees and rocks and the sound of silence.

Famous Ohioans? Presidents, inventors, and comedians. A real mixed bag. Edison, the man who brought us light, also brought us the electric chair… a true Ohioan.

Just another brick in the wall
R&R Hall of Fame
John T. Daniels, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wright Brothers
By NASA photo As11-40-5886 - http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5886.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=525386
One small step for man…
Long live Rock-n-Roll

The state runs on a three-legged stool: manufacturing, agriculture, and healthcare. It’s a sturdy foundation, but sometimes it feels like the whole thing is about to tip over.

As for everyday life? Ohio is a place where you can buy a house for the price of a parking spot in New York City. The jobs are there, if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty. And while it may not be Paris, there’s a certain charm to watching the seasons change, and knowing that your neighbors will shovel your walk when you’re snowed in with a case of the RONA.

The drive from Medina to Kent, was a pleasure, but this was a pilgrimage of sorts. Ronnie felt obligated to stand on the ground where four students died in the cause of ending the Vietnam war. This event holds special significance for Ronnie as he was just waking up to the world, and it was not an encouraging sight. He was 10 years old in 1970, and the adult world appeared to be a super-hostile place. In the end, Mr. Nixon paid a political price and the US withdrew military forces from the Republic of Viet Nam before Ronnie’s actual entrance into the adult world. But he witnessed all of this on his family’s TV screen each night at the dinner hour, and the scars are still visible.

Kent State Hallowed Ground
The Bell
Sculpture Garden

So… the pilgrimage is complete, and Ronnie leaves this soul-work nugget behind. Ohio… not the Ohio of hillbilly heartbreaks and Rust Belt blues, but the Ohio first flights and moonshots, the Ohio of young lives cut short. A place where humans learned to fly, where Rock and Roll history highlights the power of youthful energy and Kent State reminds us of the limits of that energy when colliding with the blunt force of authority. Ohio… the best and worst of humanity. But always… pure Americana.

From Rockin’ Cleveland…
To Cincinnati…
Your home Ohio…
Aviation alley…
You got Neal Armstrong…
You got Cuyahoga Falls…
Something on tap for everyone.

Hot Springs or Busk: Chapter LAST (the bramble patch)

Behold, the monstrous menagerie i’ve conjured! A labyrinthine Loopcircus, with its three infernal subdivisions—Loop, Circus, and Packmule Productions—each teeming with rooms more convoluted than a Kafkaesque nightmare. Circus, you see, is the current carnival of chaos. There, the seemingly endless series, “Hot Springs or Busk,” a first-person fever dream of a year-long, forty-eight-state tour, a kaleidoscopic voyage seeking the “fibrillating heart of our divided nation”. Then there’s “This Land,” a series of fleeting impressions, like a tourist snapping photos without digging much deeper. And let’s not forget “Below the Earth—Above the Sun,” pseudo-philosophical commentary mostly focused on spiritual evolution, but sometimes veering into US politics as if i were a celestial cartographer charting the nation’s zeitgeist one post at a time.

I fear it has grown into a tangled bramble with no real prospect of gaining navigable coherence. On the whole, it has become… how did i put it in Indiana? Oh, ya… it has become an “Abject cluster-boink” of planning failure, where the traffic engineers are frog-marched to the city square and flogged with pool noodles while a giant jumbotron broadcasts implications of their misdeeds for all to see. Yes… i would take my punishment like a guilty man.

Yet, don’t we all agree the first step toward redemption is admitting there’s a problem? And I’ve certainly done that. Now, the question remains: what to do about this tangled mess? I’m either adrift, like a sailor on a stormy sea, my ship battered by the waves of misunderstanding, or i’m a modern-day Don Quixote, tilting at windmills of ignorance and injustice, armed only with a laptop and a compulsion. I cast my bloggy pearls into the void, hoping against hope that someone, somewhere, might stumble upon these digital messages in a bottle.

As an offering to the communion gods, i’ve even cloned my voice and began producing AI-generated spoken versions of the work, catering to the audio fans among us. Will i go a step further and offer video? Nope, pass. That’s a bridge too far. Perhaps i should seek an audience match-maker, something, anything. Self-publishing, perhaps? There’s a wealth of advice out there, from Substack to Amazon. But where do i fit in? I’m not driven by reputation or monetary gain. I tend to lean organic, unfiltered. But that also means i’m a lion without hunger, a correspondent without a deadline.

Rocinante, my trusty companion.

For now, the plan is to sift through the wreckage, salvaging what i can once the tour is completed. I’ll cobble together a volume of highlights, a testament to the gist of my experiences. And then, set sail again, into the uncharted waters of the next adventure i guess. Rinse, repeat till such time as i am unable. Anyway… back to it… one more trip to Colorado Springs. This time, we’re installing rooftop solar, a final urban nomading detail for Rocinante.

Onward through the fog… R H

Hot Springs or Busk: Chapter IV (arc of the spiral)

In an attempt to illuminate where Loopcircus is coming from, metaphysically speaking, we’ll draw a brief allegory of humankind’s struggle to understand its place in the universe as an ever oscillating battle between those who insist there is a particular source from which all creation springs and those who insist we can observe the universe as the result of billions of years of adaptive (and otherwise) incremental changes. Loopcircus may be tempted to side with one or the other of these conflicting views, but the bare-metal truth is we don’t know… nor do we believe ANYONE truly knows. So… without further adieu, the spiral of puny human metaphysical understanding from Gilgamesh to Sagan.

In the beginning, there was dust, then clay, then Gilgamesh, a king who wrestled gods, chased immortality, and discovered, like a Vegas lounge lizard hungover in a bathtub full of pennies, that life’s a fleeting joke. Fast forward a few millennia, and the frame focuses on the desert of Palestine, where a carpenter’s son strolls in, flips the metaphysical tables, and promises an afterlife juicier than a Lebanese fig. This, my friends, is the Big Bang of Western metaphysics.

Centuries later, Europe enters its Renaissance, a period where deities dance the can-can with da Vinci’s anatomy sketches and Galileo gets poked in the eye by the Vatican for suggesting Earth isn’t the cosmic navel. Science, now a pimply teenager with a telescope, starts flexing its muscles, whispering sweet nothings of reason and logic to the masses. And religion, the aging aristocrat clutching its pearls, declares war.

Enter Darwin, a fellow with a penchant for Galapagos finches, drops an apparent truth bomb making the Colosseum look like a petting zoo. Suddenly, humanity isn’t God’s special snowflake, but a hairy cousin to the orangutan, scrambling up the evolutionary ladder in a desperate bid to avoid becoming monkey chow. Cue the Wagnerian strains of existential angst, thicker than London fog, and the rise of Nietzsche, and his magnificent mustache.

Across the pond, the soon to be U.S.A., a rambunctious toddler all hopped up on Manifest Destiny, is busy carving its own metaphysical niche. The Wild West, a whiskey-soaked fever dream, birthed bootstraps pragmatism, a philosophy as rugged as a cowboy’s chaps, where truth is measured by bullets, dollars, and cents, not divine pronouncements. Meanwhile, in the East Coast salons, Emerson and Thoreau, Transcendentalist proto-hippies on a nature binge, preach a gospel of self-reliance and communion with the cosmos, a far cry from the fire-and-brimstone sermons echoing from the puritan pulpits.

The 20th century, a rollercoaster ride through world wars and atomic bombs, left humanity bruised and questioning. Freud, a psychoanalyst with a penchant for cigars and Electra complexes, peered into the murky depths of the human psyche, revealing a primal soup of desires and neuroses far removed from the squeaky-clean narratives of organized religion. Existentialism, a philosophy as bleak as a Greek Tragedy, became the soundtrack of the disillusioned, while pop culture, a neon-lit funhouse, offered fleeting solace in the form of Elvis’ hips and Marilyn’s pout.

And now, in the 21st century, the stage is split. On one side, the Intelligent Design revival, a troupe of fire-and-brimstone preachers, resurrects the old gods, their voices booming with the righteous fury of a televangelist hawking snake oil. On the other, Carl Sagan’s disciples, hold aloft the flickering torch of reason, their voices laced with the wry humor of a scientist explaining the Big Bang to a five-year-old.

Then there’s we, the ever-curious, popcorn in hand, watching this embarrassing spectacle unfold. Will we turn into pillars of salt? Will fire and brimstone engulf the stage, will the Saganite laughter pierce the darkness? Or will Camus, W.B. Yeats, and George Carlin’s detached amusement save us from the disease of “passionate intensity?” The curtain has yet to fall, and the play, as always, goes on. One thing seems destined to persist: The spiral… ever oscillating between extreme attractions and aversions follows a seemingly eternal arc… each epoch like Groundhog Day… round and round the galaxy we spin… forever… and ever… and ever.

Confessions of a middle-aged “Bernista”

Yes, I confess… I am a middle-aged, white, male Bernista.
Alas, Bernie did not get the nomination, so I have to make a choice, and I’ve also chosen to declare it out loud and in public. I am, without reservation, endorsing Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. Why?
FIRST…
I want to make it clear that my endorsement is not merely due to Donald’s Trump wreck of a campaign. It does resemble a grisly accident, the kind desperate news directors salivate over; sensational, provocative, lurid, even bloody at times. The Donald has, so far, received far more free publicity than anyone should ever be allowed, but so much for that. The truth is, I’d support Clinton’s bid even if it were the lesser of two evils. For one, I believe The Donald is spectacularly unfit to serve as president of the United States, if for no other reason than his paper-thin ability to handle criticism.
Seriously… I want him nowhere near the red button.
LESSER OF TWO EVILS???
The Donald’s campaign may be a train wreck, and I may have preferred a Bernie Sanders ticket, but truth told, Ms. Clinton, is no slouch. In my opinion, she’s as or more qualified than any president serving in my lifetime (born in 1959).
YES… I WILL ELABORATE…..
But first I want to assure you, dear reader, I’m trying really hard to stay on the high road here. I could use some help, so please wish me luck. To start, I’d like to call everyone’s attention to the broken and bitter elephant in the room (pun intended). To wit, many Americans deeply distrust and vehemently dislike Ms. Clinton…. why? I suspect this animosity is a reflection of the ugly partisanship growing steadily since the “Fairness Doctrine’s” demise. The removal of the doctrine’s rules on public service broadcasting unloosed a tsunami of unfair, unbalanced right-wing bile, embraced fully by folks all ‘et up with fear and loathing for the declining supremacy of white middle-class males. The divide was further exacerbated by an unfair/unbalanced media fixation on a trumped-up “War Against Christian Culture.” This combined with relentless dishonest attacks against Ms. Clinton beginning in earnest with her first attempt to facilitate health care reform in 1993. Top all of that off with Ms. Clinton’s real flaws, missteps, and weaknesses, and you have an ideal witches brew fit for a perfect witch hunt.
BUT IS SHE A PERFECT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE? NO FREAKIN’ WAY…
Clinton cannot blame a “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” for all of her troubles. Ms. Clinton has earned a measure of suspicion and/or ambivalence. Cases in point, 1.) the closed meetings of first health care task force. 2.) The “Whitewater” debacle. 3.) The personal emails destroyed after leaving the State Department. 4.) Her reluctance to disclose a recent bout with pneumonia. 5.) The exorbitant cash earned on the speech circuit. And 6.) Her severe lack of personal charisma.
SO… WHAT DOES SHE HAVE?
TRUE GRIT… like Mattie Ross! I agree with the Washington Post’s assessment of Clinton’s career. I see it as a series of hard knock learning experiences preparing her for the environment. Example, when the walls came down on her health care reform task force, she did not give up. Instead, she reentered the fray helping to hammer together a more modest but essential reform expanding health-care access to economically disadvantaged children.
GRIT EXHIBIT B…
Ms. Clinton’s election to the Senate in 2000 also comes to mind. Those who remember the 1990s might think her justified in holding a grudge or two, especially toward Republicans who supported the relentless, lurid, and futile investigations against her husband in the impeachment and Senate trials. But it wasn’t to be. According to the Washington Post, colleagues in both parties found her to be, businesslike, knowledgeable, intent on results, working across the partisan divides, with little regard for personal credit.
WARTS AND ALL…
And though Ms. Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary was misguided, in my opinion, it does not rise to the level of high crimes. Hell, who doesn’t want to simplify their email situation?? I have EVERYTHING forwarded to my private account, mainly because I don’t want two or more over-cluttered inboxes. I can barely manage one. But alas, I’m not dealing with highly sensitive classified information, and Ms. Clinton’s slow, grudging explanations worsened the damage. I also recognize Ms. Clinton should not have allowed an aide to go on the Clinton Foundation payroll while still at Department of State. This was a failure to maintain a clear separation between the foundation and the government; an integrity lapse she will not likely repeat.
STILL TRYING TO STAY ON THE HIGH ROAD HERE…
However, with all of her flaws and mistakes, The Donald makes Clinton look squeaky clean. She has released years of tax returns. The Donald will not. She has voluntarily identified her campaign bundlers. And The Donald? The Clinton Foundation actually is a charitable foundation … The Donald … well… he did get a lovely portrait of himself.
…TRUTH…
Ms. Clinton, as opaque as she sometimes appears, is Saran Wrap transparent compared to The Donald.
So … it is what it is: This white, male Bernista is committed to supporting Hillary Clinton for President of the United States … there … I said it out loud. Now, what do I expect from a Clinton presidency?
  1. Relentless commitment (even The Donald recognizes this),
  2. Seriousness of purpose,
  3. Flinty resolve, even in the face of powerful resistance, and,
  4. Good old-fashioned “public service” ethic, focused on achievements in the public interest.

What else do I expect from Hillary Clinton?
As much as I expect from anyone else … the best she can do.

LOSING OUR MINDS AT THE END GAME…
Folks, this is a potentially historic moment, and I find it deeply troubling that any woman would support a move to repeal the 19th amendment in effect denying women the right to vote. WTF? There is no excuse for this straight-up crazy talk. Even IF highly motivated to head off the prospect of Clinton’s supreme court picks.

C’mon folks… we’re not turning clocks back…. hello!?!?
I see the recent #RepealThe19th as proof some of us have finally lost our minds. Please, close your eyes and try to imagine someone pushing a movement to repeal the 13th amendment… seriously… ?!?!?

Let’s keep moving forward…
Let’s elect Hillary Clinton…
Let’s make history!!

Cheers… Loopcircus