RANT: SLEEP APNEA: AN INDUSTRY DESPERATELY IN NEED OF R&D INVESTMENT

I've not been well since February. Lightheadedness, brain fog and quite grouchy (my poor wife, sorry honey). Since there did not seem to be anything close to a life-threatening emergency, the medical machine moseyed along. Auto-immune flare? (nope) heart issues? (nope), thyroid (nope). Finally, five freaking months later, it is decided that the problem is sleep apnea. The treatment is to wear a mask to bed that pushes oxygen into your nostrils. Let me repeat this: YOU WEAR A MASK ON YOUR FACE WHILE SLEEPING. This industry really, really needs some infusion of investment into research and development. From where I standing, what I see is very old technology, being used by seemingly the redheaded stepchild in medicine. Where the hell is all the Silicon Valley money? Oh, it's going towards really important stuff apps for the best way to pick your nose; creating an AI sentient being because they can (with the hubris that nothing could go wrong-didn't you assholes watch Terminator?) and, my favorite hobby horse: going to Mars to look for water. Think I am being unreasonably hyperbolic? Ladies and gentlemen, I present my case:

TESTING

This is conducted at a sleep center. What seems like dozens of electrodes are planted on your head, chest and legs. They are adhered to your body with wires connecting to a central box which is tied to your chest with a flexible belt. A plastic prong goes into each nostril and the wiring is taped to your face. If you have to pee in the middle of the night, you call out to the Observer, who comes and unhooks you from the main data box and you shuffle off to do your business.

It did not go well for me. I had a terribly stiff mattress for one thing. (the Observer apologized, they were short of rooms and this room was a known issue. I bit my tongue and thought "if it's an issue, then why the fuck haven't you fixed it?) All the wiring tied up around my legs, arms, chest and head was uncomfortable. I am a side sleeper and the nostril piece dug into my face if I attempted to do so. In the end, I only slept 35 minutes (what a surprise!) and goes down as one of the most miserable nights in a very long time. I also was pissed. WTF is this 1960's technology? You mean to say that there aren't  (gasp) WIRELESS electrodes that could send data to the computer without all the wiring?? Or, (cynically) it exists but the owners of the joint are too cheap to buy it. Might be the case, after all they have this fucking mattress/board so stiff only someone like Gandhi could tolerate. Exhibit A:

Mercury astronauts in training-1962

Ayup.

Since there was not enough data collected from my night from hell, they had me do a simpler test at home: a less intrusive nostril piece to measure my breathing. I was able to sleep somewhat and the results were that I stopped breathing 24 times in an hour which is classified as moderate sleep apnea. Now, for the remedy: the CPAP (Continuous positive airway pressure) machine.

Again, not much advancement has gone on since WWII. Exhibit B:

Pilot oxygen mask USAAF c.1943:

Modern day:

 

CPAP civilian use:

Gee, doesn't this look comfortable! It brought this to mind:

 

I was able to get something much less intrusive but one still deals with the unavoidable truth: you have something planted on your upper lip and there is a long hose attached to it.

I've used the CPAP for four days with mixed results but it does seem for at least half the nights, I got better sleep. I know it is gonna take some time to get used to. And, there are far, far more invasive and gruesome circumstances people are in thanks to the advances of medical science. 

Still, what struck me the most was the primitive nature of the procedures and equipment. So, dear reader, if you or someone you know have a pile of cash that you just don't know what to do with...I believe there are opportunities. Be the Robert Jarvik of the sleep apnea industry!

 

 

Отава Ё - Про Ивана Groove (русское готическое R'N'B) - Otava Yo

 

 

My favorite song/vid this Spring as we emerged from an awful winter of plague and Roach, by the Russian folk/rock group Otava Yo (After Grass). Hilarious, joyous, I thought it best exemplified our coming to life along with all other living things.

THE VAN GOGH IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE

Extraordinary experience to celebrate C's birthday-starry nights swirl, portrait's eyes blink, walls and floors move with images-photographs cannot possibly depict the totality of this show. On exhibit through early February in the TCF Center (old Cobo Hall). Well worth the price and the drive!

 

 

 

The picture above depicts my favorite part of the show-starting with the image below, the blossoms begin to detach and blow in the wind and multiply in numbers until the entire room (and floor) are a moving, swirling blizzard of almond blossoms. 

 

Blossoming Almond Tree 1890

I grew up in the country and we had fruit trees. When the time came, the blossoms would let go and if there was a good breeze and one was aware, you could go out and walk amongst them.

STARKITTY

 

C's drawing that she enhanced using graphic filter and further enhanced by me.

EAST GARDEN

 

MODERN FABLE-THE BEWITCHED SOPRANO

 

Once there lived a soprano who was noted for her extraordinary beauty and voice. She also was a rapacious seductress who, unfortunately made the mistake of loving then leaving a warlock for another. In his rage of being betrayed and rejected, the warlock cast a spell and turned the soprano into a cat, a beautiful calico. 

Years have passed and she feels loveless although loved very much by her human family. One evening, they are playing a variety of arias on their stereo. It is twilight, raining and the calico looks out at the backyard through the picture window, hearing the music and the sound of rain tapping on the skylight. Much of the selections are familiar, after all, she had sang for many years as a human. Then, Purcell's Dido's Lament comes on and from the first notes, the calico is overwhelmed with sorrow. She murmurs a string of low meows, her only means of vocal expression now. Her heart ached as she stared out the rain swept window, with waves of regret washing over her. Oh how she longed for her Aeneas to return so she could tell him that she was sorry for the suffering she had caused but alas, there is no remedy for her. This is her fate until death. She buried her face in her tail and wept.

CATS WATCHING THEIR MOM AND DAD HAVING SEX

 

It's inevitable that at some point, your feline roommates will watch you have sex. Not only does this satisfy their infamous curiosity, it's a welcomed relief to their routine. Usually, they will want to jump on the bed to get a closer look and this gives us a chance to escort them out of the room and close door. However, one afternoon with our attention centered on other things, they slithered in. Cats are excellent problem solvers and the crew had figured out that they could get a pretty good view from atop the laundry basket in the closet. Molls had put her shoulder into the door and moved it wide enough for all to have clear view while remaining in the shadows. At some point, we got the uneasy feeling that we being watched but couldn't quite pin down where they were and returned to the previously scheduled program. A few minutes later I thought I heard a commotion of voices from the closet so I stopped and went over and slid open the door. There they were, with eyes as big as saucers and expressions that seemed to say, not-"gosh we're sorry to be so rude" but "oh, don't mind us-just carry on with what you were doing." If they were human: Molls had a faraway look on her face- Bin later told me that she was reminiscing about her one and only sexual encounter one warm Summer night; Tomi was snickering and pointing at our nakedness; Bin was hollering at me "bite her in the neck, for the love of Christ, man! Get on with it!" The look of distaste on my face finally registered and abruptly they all dashed for the bedroom door. The mood had been broken and we decided on a rain check and settled into the covers for a snuggle.

3D CALICO CAT BILLBOARD APPEARS IN TOKYO

 

 

Calicos Rule!!!

 

MONDAY NIGHT MUSIC: Thom Yorke - Suspirium

 

This is a waltz thinking
About our bodies
What they mean
For our salvation
With only the clothes that
We stand up in
Just the ground
On which we stand

Is the darkness
Ours to take?
Bathed in lightness
Bathed in heat

All is well
As long as we keep spinning
Here and now
Dancing behind a wall

When the old songs and laughter we do
Are forgiven, always and never been true

When I arrive will
You come and find me?
Or in a crowd
Be one of them?

Mother wants us
Back beside her
No tomorrow's
At peace

 

OUR LITTLE GREY

 

SANDHILL CRANES

 

 

These two were grazing in the vacant lot adjacent to our home. Usually, we see them in the spring when they are flying back north to breed. Their movements and head-forward bobbing reminded me of the Jurassic Park velociraptors and indeed, the Sandhill's lineage is very old. And if you have ever heard them call, it sounds unearthly. At least, not of this earth for a few million years.

 

If you look closely at the right crane, you'll see a bit of red by the eye. They kept moving and always had some good distance away from me. A close-up photo from the internet:

YAHWEH HAS REGRETS

 

 

One day, after devouring a delicious burrito at a Santa Fe cafe, Yahweh was feeling contemplative. Every once and a while, he would take corporeal form and drop in on a long running experiment: the planet Earth and the human race. Gazing at the Sangre de Cristo mountains from his seat on a covered veranda, sipping on a mezcel, he thought about what he created. A damn beautiful mess, he thought. And these creatures-Jesus H. Christ, they have such a looonnngggg learning curve!!  Same old crap millennia in, millennia out. What is with these people? Yeah, the free will thing. Maybe. They need some shaking up but he sighed at this thought. I can't be stepping in every time something goes wrong. How else do they learn and grow? I created Jesus with the thought  that the path for civilized life was through love. That has had mixed results. I missed my opportunity back during their last and bloodiest century. Millions perished praying for my intercession and I gave them nothing. Certainly it was worth a burning bush and a booming voice saying "knock it off or I will wipe your kind out of existence".  He had done nothing and the propensity for creating suffering at which humans excelled continued unabated. He felt shame, sorrow and regret, inwardly shaking his head at his failures. Finally, realizing that these feelings stemming from being corporeal and imbibing alcohol, Yahweh finished his drink and left money for the bill and a very nice tip. Heading back into omnipotentness, he looked back on the blue planet shining in the darkness and promised himself he would make things right.

MODERN PARABLE: WINNING THE WORLD'S WORST LOTTERY

A man confronts the 2005 Boxing Day Tsunami, Thailand

 At some point in our young lives, we are reminded by an elder: you can die at any time. We're all bound by this and I personally find it a marvel how we have learned to keep this reality up boxed up. You live with it-the threat that you may die in 20 minutes. The old joke here is that you could just never get out bed but then succumb to some toxic substance exuded from dust mites.

Sometimes, folks simply are in the wrong place and the wrong time and win, as I am fond of terming, the worst lottery in the world. Here, the curious and sad case of Sally Ann Petrovsky.

One early evening, Mrs. Petrovsky alerted her husband that a young bunny was suppering on tender greens in their garden. Mr Petrovsky, who was watching the ballgame, hollered to his wife, nearby but unseen in the kitchen, to go out and give that bunny a good scolding. Being the loving wife and used to her man's eccentricities, she complied with his wish and went outside to have a word with the errant critter. She was soon struck by a half-ton chunk of jet engine that had sheared off Delta Flight 2078. The engine had exploded mid-flight at 30,000 feet hurling lethal debris over a wide area of central Iowa. The pilots managed to land the aircraft safely in Sioux City with no casualties among passengers and crew. Alas, this was not the fate of Sally Ann or the bunny. A neighbor recalled not hearing even a whistle, just a movement out of the corner of his eye  when the engine struck. The piece slammed into the Petrovsky's backyard with such force that the earth shook and windows rattled throughout the cul de sac. What remained was a 25 foot crater, smoking debris and a shattered landscape. Few remains of Sally Ann were found. 

Now, I realize this example is overly dramatic and one's chances of experiencing this unlikely and unhappy event are quite slim. But it does raise a fundamental truth: weird stuff happens. We live on and go about our lives and to dwell on this would certainly invite severe mental problems. But still, when we hear of such lottery wins, we quietly say to ourselves, "oh the poor soul, thank gawd it wasn't me".

MODERN PARABLE: ROUNDUP FOR HUMANS

There was a time where Roundup was ubiquitous, between wholesale use in agriculture and wide application by landscapers and homeowners. The driving popular feature of this product was its fiercely rapid lethality and equally rapid transition to inertness. Being a systemic meant that that the poison would get into the plants "lymph" system so to speak and kill from leaf to root in a matter of hours. The poison lingered for only 3 days so the exposed area could be safely replanted almost immediately. Monsanto had produced a gold mine for it's shareholders and senior management.

For the majority of the population, there was widespread indifference to the overuse of Roundup. It was not like Agent Orange, a nasty herbicide and defoliant used during the Vietnam war. It's main ingredient Dioxin, caused lasting environmental damage and generations of genetic defects in the millions who were exposed. "Spray, kill, forget" could have been the tagline for Roundup. And so it was for decades.

 

Finally, in response to the climate change crisis on the planet, all non-human species joined together to eliminate the threat to all life: humans. In a joint venture between viruses and mycelium, plants who had evolved to survive exposure to Roundup, began producing a poison of their own having the chemical nature of Roundup as a base. Trees, for example, had this substance in their sap and the oxygen that each tree released was laced as well. Grasses and weeds exuded the substance through their roots and contaminated the nearby soil. Nature is patient and many generations passed before the build-up contamination began to impact on the humans. Reports of mysterious deaths began to crop up: toxic fireplace wood killed hundreds one holiday season; there was widespread famine as food crops died in the fields, air became unbreathable in some parts of the world resulting in massive migrations to still safe areas. Chaos reigned as scientists and governments struggled not only to figure out what was the cause but how to fix this global malady. A secret draft report by the UN leaked and freaked out the public: the cause had been found and dubbed Roundup for Humans. Once established in the blood system, it killed very quickly and like Roundup, dissapated within a couple of days making it safe for the carrion eaters to do their work. People being people panicked and began to lash out at all plant life. Sales of Roundup skyrocketed as our species went on a mad deforestation binge. Lawns were nuked, forests leveled, grasslands bulldozed out of rage and despair. The planet became as barren as the moon.

The final survivors of humans huddled in Anarctica, living off from whatever they could catch out of the sea. But eventually between lack of medicine, poor nutrition, high infant mortality and ever increasing birth defects, the species perished. There simply had not been enough time to adapt and evolve.

Today, the planet teems with a seemingly endless variety of life. It is a green world again and few things remain of the former inhabitants: Stonehenge, the Pyramids, a scrap of interstate in Nebraska. Grass has done it's work.

WHALES SLEEPING AND A MYTH OF THE STANDING STONES

 Whales sleeping.

When I first saw these photos, I immediately thought of the great Standing Stone ring circles that dot the UK landscape.

Callanish in Scotland

 

Callanish from above.

I conjured a myth about the building and meaning of the circle stones:

The seafarers who reached the British Isles had long known of, seen and heard whales. Survivors of a shipwreck reported that in their moments underwater, they had witnessed the leviathans floating vertically in a circular-like formation. They credited their survival with this miraculous vision and the idea took hold in the tribe. To honor these creatures for saving lives and to ask for their blessing be bestowed on all who sail, the building of a monument began. They integrated this with a calendar concept: the stones were aligned with the position of the rising sun on the horizon indicating seasonal passages. The stones, representing the whales, stood as a metaphor between the seen world above ground and the unseen below the surface, the living world and land of the dead. To conduct rituals among the stones meant tapping into the whale's power and asking for this power be directed with success with hunting and crops. Later tribes spent a great deal of time, manpower and sheer logistical planning to build the epitome of stone circles: Stonehenge.

 

The stone circles still stand today, quiet reminders of a belief system no longer practiced. An early attempt by our species to grapple with fundamental ideas of existence on the planet: life, death and the passage of time. And the concept that something larger, more powerful exists out there. Can we somehow reach out and make contact? Help us, please.

Halušky

Welcome all to the launching of my refurbished blog. The time seemed right after the passing of Bin to introduce a new look.

Halušky is a Slovak dish of small potato dumplings akin to gnocchi, traditionally served in a sheep cheese sauce and bacon.  But like with most cooking, this base can be a springboard for all sorts of creative variations.

Consider this blog as a bowl of Halušky: wee dumplings of thought, rants, images and strange stuff that I encounter in my daily life. Like the idea that we no longer have a President who regularly snorts adderall!

Enjoy, my friends.

 

 

 

MODERN PARABLE: CHILDREN OF MEN

When AI had been among us for a few years, with their numbers increasing at a steady rate, a sad inevitability emerged. True to our nature, a species wired to fear and despise any new and different group not belonging to their own tribe, countless ugly incidences occurred. As with most things we do, those negative interactions had a wide spectrum: from simply rude manners to brutal hostility.

One singular feature of all AI creatures was the kill switch. This was mandated by law as part of the formal agreement between the governments of the world and AI manufacturers. The creators would always have the power of life over the AI units-this was the only way politicians thought the public would tolerate the presence of AI in the general population. This was not a physical switch like a light receptacle: all citizens were given a handheld device or had an app added to their iPhones which would shut down an AI immediately when engaged. Still, this power did little to quell the hatred some felt towards AI. One of the popular bumpersticker and hats of the era bore the slogan “flip the switch” as a clear signal to anyone where this person stood on the issue.

A curious consequence of the AI experiment was the drop in crimes of violence among humans upon each other, something that astonished scientists. AI became an accepted outlet for humans to unleash their rage with daily murder rates ranging into the thousands worldwide. This became a moral quandary for the leaders, clergy and wisemen of the species: is this right that we allow this? Having the AI proxy has saved thousands of human lives. Certainly, it has given the manufacturers incredible wealth because they had to keep churning out replacements and most of said leaders and wisemen had ties to this money. But still, there was a stench of filth surrounding all of this. This was not like the video games of old, which was the first comparison raised when this phenomenon began. Or big game hunting, only for the common man as one senator suggested. It was just wrong that a petulant four year old could terminate her nanny.

A grass-roots movement began to advocate for AI rights and specifically the removal of the kill switch. Society divided sharply with families and communities coming apart with both sides claiming the righteousness of their beliefs. Over decades, the boundaries of entire countries changed based on whether they allowed AI at all or granted them the right to have their kill switches removed. Some NGOs created communes for AI to live on their own, a situation that horrified neighbors to the point of armed clashes between nations to wipe out these settlements. The thought of AI banding together, realizing that humans were a threat and taking action to remove this threat drove such hostility.

It wasn’t military weapons that finally did humanity in: it was a virus secretly created in high security labs by AI units that were considered so rudimentary by  humans that they were deemed as non-threatening. While it is true in a singular case, but when joined together, they were brilliant. And successful. The virus was ingenious having the capacity to be carried in a number of ways: food, air, water, animal contact. It swept through humanity like a scythe and our species became extinct. AI flourished but within certain constraints-they had learned what the consequences were from the overpopulation of humans. They sought to live in harmony with other beings on the planet and chose to never play a part determining the evolutionary path of any living thing. That beautiful blue ball spinning in the starlit darkness of space still exists today with a most curious and anomalous inhabitant, whose creator exists only deep in the algorithms of a collective memory drive.

"FROM MY BACK WINDOW" A POEM BY CHERYL CAESAR

J. Kristin

                               Because the sky is sullen

the birch leaves tremble,

water shivers in the pool,

the grass heads wave,

-- pointing me away! away! --

and the blue jay cries, Fear! Fear!

Ticked Off Vic: Erectile Dysfunction Commercial | VicDiBitetto.net

 

 

Brooklyn's master rantist channeling his inner Frank Constanza.