Spring 2014

E. E. Cummings (1894-1962)

you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young, whatever life you wear

It will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance 

========================= 

Now I a fourfold vision see,
And a fourfold vision is given to me:
'Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And threefold in soft Beulah's night
And twofold always, may God us keep
From single vision and Newton's sleep! 
---William Blake 


===========================

The Guinness Made Me Do It

Continuing to pursue his project to discover new ways of connecting with Nature, Nick Herbert invokes his inner Irish tenor at a St. Paddy's Day party in Aptos. Accompanied by Kim Fulton Bennett on wooden flute, Nick renders the traditional Irish folk song "Carrickfergus" while other members of the band "Blarney" look on. In addition to Kim and Nick, "Blarney" consists of August O'Connor on guitar and bodhran and Matt Johnson on banjo and Irish whistle.

Matt Johnson & August O'Connor

Catfish and Earthquakes

Magical Method of Earthquake Protection: This protective print which claims to prevent earthquake damage to one's home if attached to the ceiling, shows a group of remorseful catfish apologizing to the god Kashima for causing earthquakes while he was away.

 "In November 1855, the Great Ansei Earthquake struck the city of Edo (now Tokyo), claiming 7,000 lives and inflicting widespread damage. Within days, a new type of color woodblock print known as namazu-e (lit. "catfish pictures") became popular among the residents of the shaken city. These prints featured depictions of mythical giant catfish (namazu) who, according to popular legend, caused earthquakes by thrashing about in their underground lairs. In addition to providing humor and social commentary, many prints claimed to offer protection from future earthquakes."

Kashima restrains a namazu using the kaname-ishi rock

A namazu engaged in a fierce game of "neck-tug-of-war" with the god Kashima. A group of earthquake victims root for Kashima, while those who typically profit from earthquakes (construction workers, firemen, news publishers, etc,) root for the catfish

 "The popularity of namazu-e exploded, and as many as 400 different types became available within weeks. However, the namazu-e phenomenon abruptly ended two months later when the Tokugawa government, which ordinarily maintained a strict system of censorship over the publishing industry, cracked down on production. Only a handful are known to survive today."


You can view 37 more of these rare namazu prints at the wonderful Pink Tentacle site which hosts a varied collection of Japanese graphics, videos and odd news from Japan such as the development of life-like robots.


"Researchers from the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University have teamed up with robot maker Kokoro Co., Ltd. to create a realistic-looking remote-control female android that mimics the facial expressions and speech of a human operator.

Modeled after a woman in her twenties, the android -- called Geminoid F (the "F" stands for female) -- has long black hair, soft silicone skin, and a set of lifelike teeth that allow her to produce a natural smile.


According to the developers, the robot's friendly and approachable appearance makes her suitable for receptionist work at sites such as museums. The researchers also plan to test her ability to put hospital patients at ease.

The new Geminoid F can produce facial expressions more naturally than its predecessors -- and it does so with a much more efficient design. While the previous Geminoid HI-1 model was equipped with 46 pneumatic actuators, the Geminoid F uses only 12.

In addition, the entire air servo control system is housed within the robot's body and is powered by a small external compressor that runs on standard household electricity.

The research is being led by Osaka University professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, who is known for creating teleoperated robot twins such as the celebrated Geminoid HI-1, which was modeled after himself."

Geminoid F and her human counterpart, wearing outfits by fashion designer Junko Koshino

Also from Pink Tentacle comes a list of 60 popular Japanese phrases, among which is "ria-juu" or "reality-filled" which is "internet slang that describes people who lead fulfilling lives in the real world (as opposed to the virtual online world). Examples of "reality-filled" people include those who enjoy relationships with others in the real world, those who attend parties or participate in group activities, and those who pursue non-otaku interests."

The Kalamidas Experiment--Easy Pickins

Demetrios Kalamidas: "Prove me wrong--on my own terms!"

I am no stranger to faster-than-light signaling schemes. I even wrote a book about such schemes. So when I heard about Demetrios Kalamidas's clever and original FTL signaling proposal, I jumped right in--both in trying myself to refute his scheme and urging other physicists to do so too. Only a few physicists took the bait but they were a prestigious crew: Gian-Carlo Ghirardi of quantum-collapse-model fame, Christopher Gerry, author of a respected quantum-optics textbook, John Howell at University of Rochester, a school famed for its optics discoveries and its association with Eastman Kodak, and Martin Suda at the Austrian Institute of Technology in Vienna. Each of these four men and myself took a different path and we soon produced 5 different refutations of the Kalamidas proposal.

Two path-entangled photons ambiguified by mixing with coherent states

As explained by John Howell, there are two basic ways to refute such a scheme--using photon operator calculus or using wavefunctions. Ghirardi, Howell and Gerry chose the more elegant operator mode while Suda and I calculated the wavefunctions. Although differing in details, all of our refutations have one thing in common. They are very general refutations -- with no approximations. It is obvious that if the exact Kalamidas scheme won't work, then any approximation scheme must fail as well.

Kalamidas was impressed by the variety of our refutations but he refused to entirely surrender until one condition was met. "Show me where I went off the tracks,"  he asked. "If you are all so sure that you have proved that I am mistaken, then it should be 'easy pickins' for one of you to point out exactly where I went wrong".

Nobody took up the Kalamidas challenge -- probably because they had more important work to do.  Since my life at the quantum tantra ashram requires lots of free time, I decided to calculate the result of the Kalamidas experiment on his own terms, to see if indeed it would be 'easy pickins' to find his mistake.

I did the calculation. But it would not have been easy pickins had I not learned so much exotic photon algebra from John Howell and Martin Suda, particularly the basic orthogonality relations between photon-added coherent states, displaced-Fock states and garden-variety coherent states. Using these orthogonality relations, the Kalamidas calculation becomes easy--anyone could do it.

In Kalamidas's calculation he produces an interference term [11] which if uncanceled would indeed lead to superluminal signaling. However, as part of his calculation he throws away terms that he plausibly argues are "vanishing". Demetrios's mistake was in throwing away these terms. They do not vanish and when reinstated they demonstrate why the Kalamidas scheme doesn't work.

Calculating the "vanishing terms" produces two anti-interference terms [01] and [10], each of which by itself suffices to cancel out Kalamidas's [11] term. However, if that were the end of it, the Kalamidas scheme would still work, because now one of the anti-interference terms remains uncanceled and could itself be used for superluminal signaling.

Fortunately for the fate of the world (superluminal signaling would seriously disrupt the world of physics and eventually mess up ordinary life as well)... Fortunately for the fate of the world, the "vanishing terms" produce a second interference term [00] unnoticed by Kalamidas. Now the two interference terms [11] and [00] are exactly canceled by two anti-interference terms [01] and [10] so that the "Kalamidas effect" disappears completely--on Kalamidas's own terms at Kalamidas's own level of approximation.

Take that, Demetrios!

Nick's refutation of the Kalamidas effect on Kalamidas's own terms

 A pdf file of this new refutation (including references to the work of Ghirardi, Gerry, Howell and Suda can be found here.

Monsters Have Feelings Too

by Mike Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine

SONNET 116
William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, 
Although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Doubting Conventional Reality

Erwin's puss by Lynden Stone: housed at Centre for Quantum Dynamics, Griffiths University

"Should there not be sufficient space for all sorts of curiosities which in the end the distinction between "physical" and "psychical" loses meaning?"

With this quote from physicist Wolfgang Pauli, Queensland College artist Lynden Stone begins her PhD dissertation Doubting Conventional Reality: Visual Art and Quantum Mechanics. Her
dissertation surveys other visual artists' quantum-inspired attempts to blur the distinction between objective and subjective reality as well as describing her own works on this topic which include paintings such as Erwin's puss, video installations such as Kevin wondered if the Moon existed when he didn't look, experiments with a phantom-limb simulator, the Metaphase Typewriter Revival Project, projects using the Psyleron Mind Lamp and many more. Lynden was recently honored as Artist-in Residence at Crane Gallery in Philadelphia where she participated in a joint exhibition with conceptual artist Jonathon Keats. Next month (February) Lynden exhibits a sampling of her work as one final step in the completion of her doctorate degree.

Here's Lynden's press release for her exhibit. Readers of this blog who live near Queensland, Australia, will have a rare opportunity to test their ability to "doubt conventional reality" in several imaginative quantum-physics-inspired contexts created and constructed by Lynden Stone.

Announcement for Lynden Stone's Thesis Exhibition

Two Mars Bars and the love note from Robert Smeets is the final exhibition by Lynden Stone for examination of her PhD in Fine Art at the Queensland College of Art. Based on the premise that quantum physics demands a re-evaluation of conventional reality, Stone sets out to challenge the viewers’ conventional understanding of reality that is objective, mind independent and knowable.  Viewers can test their ideas of reality by using, for example, the mechanical Mind Dispenser. This work provides random quantum events that, arguably according to quantum theory, allow a viewer to select, in a race of gobstoppers, the colored lolly of their choice by using only their consciousness. The Mind Dispenser is a collaborative piece created by Stone and final year Griffith University engineering student Anderson Tepas and Professor Steven O’Keefe.

The title piece in the exhibition, In another universe, my mother gave me the two Mars bars and the love note from Robert Smeets, 1993--2013, is a work concerning the quantum theory of parallel universes. This theory states that at every moment of choice, all possibilities manifest into multiple, branching universes. Stone presents alternate scenarios behind two doors of a kitchen cupboard. Behind one door is a representation of her parallel life where, rather than hiding the Mars bars and the love note in the kitchen cupboard, her mother did give her these things. In that life, Stone has lived as the wife of Robert Smeets in London Ontario, winning some minor painting prize for an underwhelming pastel still-life at the local show. Behind the other door is a representation of the life she has lead in this time-line.

Two Mars bars and the love note from Robert Smeets is on show in the Webb Gallery, Level 1, Webb Centre, Queensland College of Art, 226 Grey Street, South Brisbane, Queensland from 5--15 February, 2014. Gallery opening hours are Tuesday -- Saturday, 11am--4pm. The opening night event is Friday 7 February, 6--9pm.

Lynden's daughter Madeline interacts with the Psyleron Mind Lamp

Elements of Tantra

Nick dons Google Glass

ELEMENTS OF TANTRA

Love every one of My Elements
Caress My Paradox
Embrace each phase-entangled photon
Hug My Molecules; kiss My Quarks.

The universe is My Body
From every eye, the glance is Mine
Down every river flow My Fluids
In every thing resides My Mind.

I loved you inside your mother's womb
Your every atom have I kissed
I've made you everything you are
You treat Me like I don't exist.

When you open your eyes you gaze on My Body
You taste My Flesh with your lips
Every smell is My Sexual Attractant
Every touch is My Kiss.

Come open your sensors to Nature's flirtations
Come lend your step to My Dance
I'm only fourteen (billion) years old
But I'm eager and ripe for romance.

Love every one of My Elements
Caress My Paradox
Embrace each phase-entangled photon
Hug My Molecules; kiss My Quarks.

Doctor Jabir abd al Khaliq at Bruce Damer's hacienda

JABIR COURTS LADY ALCHEMY

(for Kelly Evans)

I wanna own the Philosopher's Bone
As big and hard as Allah's Own
With Power, Logic, Math inside It
And me be man enough to ride It
On my board that buggers imagination
I'd surf the Curly Crimp of Creation
I'm strong and smart; I'm a quantum knave
But where can I go to catch Your Wave?

Shri Nick Predicts: 2014

Shri Nick Predicts: 2014

As we approach the Longest Night of the Year, it is customary for pundits, psychics and raving lunatics to formulate predictions that might guide our actions in the coming New Year. Here direct from the Quantum Tantric Ashram in Boulder Creek are Shri Nick Herbert's hopes and insights concerning events likely to occur in the coming year. Adjust your investment portfolio accordingly.

1. Apple Computer will introduce two new upgrades of system OS X--Domestic Cat and Street Cat which will continue to steal market share from Windows.

2. As physicists unanimously recognize its deep kinship with the mystical Slavic soul, Dark Matter will henceforth be known as Ukrainium.

3. For his imaginative Schopenhaurer-inspired performance of Urge: a Short Opera About Reality, Nick Herbert will be awarded a special Oscar for "the best metamusical of 2014".



4. Scott Hulan Jones's film Supernature: Esalen and the Human Potential is released in 2014 and subsequently breaks all box office records as the Year's Most Popular Documentary.


5. Peace is achieved in the Middle East following implementation of Doctor Jabir's two-state solution. For his essential role in these negotiations, President Obama shares his second Nobel Peace Prize with Jabir abd al Khaliq.

6. The Periodic Table gains several new members--fractionally charged elements collectively known as  "Inbetweenia."

7. Alien starships fail to make an appearance. The reason? All really smart aliens travel from mind to mind. Aliens call Earth "Planet of the Hates". And who would wish telepathic contact with a world of whiners?

8. The Best Book of the Year is Michael Muhammad Knight's "Tripping With Allah", a roller-coaster ride through the illuminated mosque-mind of "the Hunter S. Thompson of Islam". Thanks, Max.

9. An accidental discovery in a remote part of the world gives us the first hint of a breakthru into the universe of quantum tantra--a brand new way of interacting with Nature more intimate than physics. Magicians, illusionists, and makers of gold from common stuff proliferate. New and exciting forms of union are experienced daily. The human world is changed forever--in a direction no one had ever guessed to exist, tho Jabir's Epistle to the Greeks caught a tiny corner of it.


10. Sales of "Harlot Nature" soar as people seek to understand and participate in the Grand Opening Night of the human species.

He Did Not Die

HE DID NOT DIE

(For Jack--If you love Hitler 
so much, Nick, 
then why don't you write a poem 
about him?--Sarfatti.)

"Who is closer to you, Sir"
                        a monk asked Buddha,
"He who loves you, or he who hates you?"
"He who hates me," replied the Buddha.
"Because he thinks of me more often."

Mighty King Lucifer
Who was brought low
Who died by his own hand
In a Berlin bunker
Who rose again.

By the power of hate
Is Our Satan kept alive
His deeds in state museums immortalized.
In our hearts we hold Him closer
Than any Christian holds his Lord.

By the power of our hatred
We made places on Earth
Where Satan's so sacred
No man dares display His Mark
Except in secret.

So long as there remains
Just one of us who hates him
He will live on.
His soul is immortal.
Der Führer did not die.

Joy of Jazz

Joy Rush singing at Scopazzi's

Shortly after the California Gold Rush, Boulder Creek was born as home for gangs of lumberjacks cutting and milling redwood trees to build houses in boom-town San Francisco. Now the loggers are mostly gone, having been displaced by wine-makers, commuters to Silicon Valley and mad geniuses in the hills, but the redwoods still remain, and chain saws are still as common in Boulder Creek as computers. Some of the early settlers were Italian: people with names like Locatelli, Robustelli and Scopazzi. And Italians love to eat.

Boulder Creek's finest restaurant is Scopazzi's, located a few blocks west of Johnnie's Market. And Scopazzi's has recently been hosting a remarkable music group called Joy of Jazz -- named after its leader and singer, the amazing Joy Rush.

Joy Rush (yes, that's her real name) not only sings, but had previously established a reputation in town as a dancer,  teaching her own brand of low-impact dance exercise called Joyrush Fitness Systems. Joy's dance training really shows: when Joy sings, every part of her body moves, not just her lips. Before putting together Joy of Jazz, Joy sang with various other local groups, as in this TV clip of Joy singing and swaying with the Jazzamanders. As its name suggests, Joy's group performs jazz standards and she is sometimes joined on stage by local singers Bonnie Bell and Vicki Coffis.

In addition to their swaying songstress, Joy of Jazz consists of Jack Bowers on piano, George Galt on harmonica, David Nordgren on upright bass, with regular guest appearances by Paul Einzinger on saxophone. Here's a video clip of Joy's back-up crew.

Jack Bowers on keyboard

In the early '70s, Jack Bowers made his fame in the San Lorenzo Valley as pianist and song writer for the Valley's notorious hippy band Oganookie, which regularly played at the Town & Country in Ben Lomond-- now a big rambling antique shop but "in the day" the T&C was our local version of San Francisco's Fillmore dance hall, complete with light shows, crazy costumes and outrageous behavior. "We performed over a thousand gigs from Petaluma to San Diego," Jack says, "and recorded an album." Jack also played piano with the Golden State Gamblers and with Jill Croston, a local girl who made good in Nashville as Lacey J Dalton. Jack's longest lasting gig was at Soledad Prison where he managed the Arts in Corrections program for more than 25 years. When First Unto This Country is a good example of Jack's work as performer and arranger.

George Galt on harmonica

George Galt is one of Boulder Creek's behind-the-scenes community leaders. As an elected member of the Parks and Recs Department, he plans the details of our annual Fourth of July Parades -- one of the 2 1/2 holidays we celebrate in Boulder Creek, the others being Hallowe'en and -- sometimes -- April Fools Day. George handles the musical aspects of these events and is currently at the center of a project to establish a radio station in BC. George is also on the board of Vajrapani, our local Buddhist center, and has even recorded a few original Buddhist songs including the show-stopping Don't Know Much About Emptiness. George has played and sung with many music groups including running harmonica riffs for Jazzamanders, Fairport Convention and the psychedelic band Ant Trip Ceremony. George repairs cars in his (fixed and mobile) garage in Boulder Creek where he recently replaced the back brakes on my Subaru -- affording a rare opportunity for a tantric quantum mechanic to share vibes with a Buddhist auto mechanic.

David Nordgren on stand-up bass

David Nordgren has been playing stand-up bass for numerous jazz groups and theater performances in the Santa Cruz area for more than a decade. He's a regular participant in the weekly jazz jams at Santa Cruz's Bocci's Cellar. David both bows and strums his instrument according to the mood of the song and in this short clip (with Bowers and Enzinger) shows off a style both solid and witty.

Paul Einzinger on saxophone

Paul Einzinger is a saxophone player now living in Felton who, like Dave Nordgren, also jams at Bocci's Cellar. To me Paul's performances seem so smooth and effortless that I was not surprised to hear from him that he had gained a lot of experience by playing in big bands. "Where did you play?" I asked, guessing maybe San Francisco, Chicago or New York. "Oh, in Idaho." Paul replied.

Here's a video clip of Joy of Jazz performing "Young at Heart" on Scopazzi's outside deck.

Nick Herbert is one of this band's biggest fans: I love Joy of Jazz. This group is so...so...QUANTUM! Whether at Scopazzi's or at one of their other musical venues, don't pass up the chance to experience Joy of Jazz. As Joy Rush likes to proclaim: "It's more fun if YOU are there."