Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I got tattooed this afternoon. A good experience as always. We capped off my shoulder with a sort of mystic circus tent thing that I may post a quick pick of tomorrow, and did some chatting about an enormous new project… My cute little heartbreaker (I wanna take you home) gave me a ride there because I was running late, but I took transit back. I genuinely enjoy taking transit, especially during rush hours. But let me rewind twenty or so years first.

When I was a kid I had three or four recurring dreams/nightmares, which also reflected themselves in my waking life in terms of my belief structures and how I interacted with the world around me. One of the underlying themes of one of the recurring dream was surveillance — the knowledge that I was always being watched. As a child, I called these beings just “the watchers” (ooh, creative). I don't know where they were supposed to live; the vision's cosmology was not revealed to me other than the notion that water played a role in the gateway to their “universe” (or wherever they were from) — both the lake in front of my house and a local swimming pool acted as gateways in my dreams.

Anyway, their “job” was just to watch people. I suppose it's a reflection on my own narcissism that I'd conjure something like that up (ie. I'm so special that magical beings come and watch me, ha!). In any case, the idea of watching people I guess stuck on me, so I do that… I really like watching people think and listening to what they're feeling, not so much in a “fun” sense, but more in a “that's fascinating” sense, like birdwatching or something. So to get back to my story, I'm sitting on the subway and a fairly tall attractive girl sits down across from me. I was more watching three old women (unrelated) who I'm pretty sure were reptilian beings, but I decided to explore this new person for a while instead.

It was strange because as the ride continued (she stayed on for about five or six subway stops I think) she just kept getting sadder and sadder. Some people get upset when you listen to them, but I don't think this was anything like that. But wow, talk about emotional pain, it was very very sad. I never quite know what to do in a situation like that — I don't think it's appropriate to say anything, I mean, what sort of insane-sounding come-on would that be like, “hey, I was just listening to your emotions and I wanted to let you know that it's ok, you'll be alright, and you really need to stop beating yourself up over this stuff“?

Yeah, way to get hit with the pepper spray and then sent to the loony bin.

In any case, when they got off the subway I realized it was an ex that I didn't recognize until then (so perhaps this story is more about what a callous ass I am). Of course, part of me thinks I superimposed the “recognition” afterwards, but we're all part of a giant biological communications mesh network, so perhaps it's irrelevant. While some would argue that it's a good reason not to let men write stories involving women, I really believe the Lucifer's claim to Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ that “all women are the same woman, just with different faces.” But to be clear, I believe that about men as well.

I don't think I'm unique in this idea. I also want to be real clear that I think supernatural explanations are bunk. Nothing I believe about the universe requires a supernatural explanation in my opinion, and if it does then it's probably a flawed notion. But imagine if people are web servers, and the energy that connects us all are data conduits (and you can have ley lines be the internet backbones if you want). Thus once someone is “online”, you can use any point on the net to talk to them.

The question is, are you online?

PS. My grandmother just died (age 86; a long life of boozing and smoking kept her alive so long). I hadn't seen her in 10 years, but from what I know it was probably a good thing on the whole. Still, it's too bad people don't live longer.

Tattooed People Onstage:
From Exhibitions to Entertainers.
PART I

“The love of beauty in its multiple forms is the noblest gift of the human cerebrum.”

- Alexis Carrel

The modern Western perception of tattooing has been indelibly marked by its cultural association with the sideshow and its historical predecessor the traveling exhibit. Tattooing as an art form cut its teeth and developed in the West in great part due to the desire for and profit to be had by exhibiting tattooed people. At many circuses and carnivals one could not only see a tattooed marvel but also receive a permanent souvenir from the traveling tattoo artist on the lot. For years, tattoo artists commonly spent most of their time on the road with such shows, possibly also serving as its banner painter, and then wintering at a street shop location. A great example of such an artist, and an inspirational tale in its own right, is Stoney St. Clair whose life and work was documented in what is often considered a seminal work in the history of tattooing: Stoney Knows How (BOOK, VHS).

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Since it's been something like 11 years since I've actively been involved in breaking this type of security, I don't think anything I say can be used against me. To be very clear — I have little interest in personally robbing banks or committing wire fraud at this point in my life. I do however have a great deal of interest in the security arrangements banks make to take care of my assets. So here are some comments from my afternoon at the bank.

My bank has just upgraded their computers to some new “paperless” (minus the thousands of brochures promoting it of course) system. As anyone who's spent much time in a bank can tell you, the more paperless a system is, the more scraps of paper are needed to write down account numbers to take from terminal to terminal. Because of this, the bank has set up an “accessory” terminal that all the tellers can use when they need to look up account details.

It's got an LCD screen which shows its results in nice, easy to read 24 point Arial which any monkey can write down from across the room. That's right Ezzat Si Kavali, not only do I know your name and account number and secret phrase, I also know your PIN number since you had to type it in a dozen times while saying it out loud*. Anyway, point is that these terminals should be facing the tellers and AWAY from the customers, not plainly visible to anyone in the bank.

For those of you who talked to me about this in RI, I present to you the following snippet:

Me: I have sort of an odd question.
Bank: OK, what is it?
Me: When someone puts stuff into their bank deposit box, do you search it?
Bank: No.
Me: Well what if they put in an icecream cone in and it dripped onto the stuff in the box below?
Bank: We just have to trust that our customers are honest and wouldn't do anything like that. One person who was mad at us put a fish in their box, that was terrible.
Me: Really? What did you do?
Bank: I don't know… it wasn't at this branch, but I heard it was terrible.
Me: Could they just search all the boxes?
Bank: I don't think so.
Me: Wow. Well, I hope no one puts a bomb in one of the boxes.

When I have more time I'll explain the whole thing (a truly “foolproof” way to hit a bank for about $4,000,000 and not get caught) here, unless I already did and am just forgetting doing so. Actually, who am I kidding? If I already explained it, it increases my chances of repeating the explanation if past trends hold true.