Mereology: The Origins of Garlic Cures and The Art of Telling a Tale of Ragout by Keith Lyons birddogbooks.com Copyright © Keith Lyons 20115 ISBN-13: 978-3932796500 ISBN-10: 3932796500 For Chaos (Harvey), Danger, Gwendolyn and Martina This book is as much a work of fiction as it is a work of nonfiction: This means that a Tale of Ragout is completely based on imagination and, thus, the content of the story is real— as real as anything else you’re experiencing within Your immediate sensory field…as real as anything and everything within a life that fills existence with imagination. Either You can smell the garlic and taste the ragout or no. Copyright © 2015 by Keith Lyons All rights reserved Published somewhere in the world for Bird Dog Books LLC, Dresden, Germany Book cover layout and design by: Maria Thoene File edited for printing by: Keith Lyons Mereology: The Origins of Garlic Cures and the Art of Telling a Tale of Ragout has not been properly edited. Due to the difficult nature of some its content combined with the limited budget BirdDogBooks had to work with, there were insufficient funds to hire a qualified editor. If there are any grammatical or syntax errors (that are making Your ragout feel like itis going rank) please feel free to contact the author or the publisher at the addresses found at: BirdDogBooks.com An Index is not included in Mereology: The Origins of Garlic Cures and the Art of Telling a Tale of, but one is available for free at BirdDogBooks.com. There is also an open forum to ask questions regarding relevant terminology and/or the nature of the source material. For other books and music videos please go visit our Website: BirdDogBooks.com Table of Contents Introduction… A Tale of Ragout……………………………............1 Chapter 1... Guanxi……………………………………….….......4 Chapter 2… Garlic Deliverance and metal ear-scrapers.……13 Chapter 3… Kurt Vonnegut and suicide bombers. Luddites. Syria versus America………………………………….....16 Chapter 4… The Origin of the first "Garlic Cure" is born…...25 Chapter 5… Consciousness and Life: The American Dream became an American Nightmare…………………………...29 Chapter 6… “The Engineering of Consent”.….…...................32 Chapter 7… Non-Transcendental Philosophy……..………...37 Chapter 8…. Schrödinger’s cat verses a tree that fell in the woods ………………………………………………..……51 Chapter 9…. Subjective-Objective, and a predicated reality...59 i Chapter 10…. Robert Crumb. Bob Crane. John Waters. My father the peach…...……………………………………….69 Chapter 11…. Skateboarding and punk rock: A Fuck You Heroes guide to life……………………………………….. …....72 Chapter 12… Hardcore Punk: Reminiscing…………….….......80 Chapter 13….. Aristotle’s A=A as an Ontological axiom. The logic of quantum mechanics ….......................................83 Chapter 14…. Phil Donahue and punk rockers………….…….88 Chapter 15…. “Special orders don’t upset us” transform valued life into a disposable some-thing………...………….....94 Chapter 16…. Happy Toons: Meditating…………………..…100 Chapter 17…. Mafia grandfathers……………………………...106 Chapter 18…. Allen Ginsberg’s “America” delivered in garlic sauce……..………………………………………………..114 Chapter 19…. Deceit and psychological warfare……………..119 ii Chapter 20….. Poison program of control and the control applied by authority and power…………………………….….126 Chapter 21…. Cross country bicycle tours and sanity. Richard Dawkins and ignorant Shamanism. An a priori “non- working” model of time………………...………...……136 Chapter 22…. Catholic High School……………….…………..177 Chapter 23…. The vanishing line between sanity, the nuthouse and the outhouse: The American Dream…………….178 Chapter 24…. The American Dream continues………………199 Chapter 25…. Cause and Effect, and the redefining of natural and real numbers…..…………………………………...207 Chapter 26… The Mother of Garlic and her deep fried, two liter bottles of Seagram’s…..………………………………...213 Chapter 27…. My stay an insane asylum comes to an ends...223 Chapter 28…. Decline in garlic consumption feeds consumer capitalism and the “entitlement of purchasing power” ………………………………………………………….227 iii Chapter 29…. Driving on Lakes Shore Drive (LSD)……….…236 Chapter 30… LSD, laughing gas, alcohol, and my first sexual encounters…………………………………………...…..243 Chapter 31... Spinoza, Leibniz and Berkeley dissect the Ancient Greek mereological experience into empirical branches of nothingness……..…………………………..249 Chapter 32… Zen and “violent acts, including homicide, sexual orgies, and gruesome sadistic acts”……………………..266 Chapter 33… Escaping the FBI………………………………...278 Chapter 34… Riding a bike from Minot Montana to Anchorage Alaska…...……………………………………………….284 Chapter 35… Gutting fish on Egegik: Bike trips prosper on the tundra……...…………………………………….……….290 Chapter 36… The Flying Spaghetti Monster verses The Origins of Garlic Cures………………………………….……..…….302 Chapter 37… Leaving for Germany…………………………...313 iv Dinner is served…. On Garlic: “Hail vulgar juice of never-fading garlic, etc., etc” and “Coca-a-Cola® Keep Out!”………….........322 Footnotes and further research in the nature of phenomenology as an inquiry based on mereological experience.....................................................................................332 Bibliography / Webliography…………………………...……365 Index……………………………… (can be found at) BirdDogBooks.com Garlic®, it’s the real thing v Extra special thanks to Tamara Smith and Keiti Pierce for all of their years of help and support, and special thanks to John Martin, William Wallace, Melissa Taylor, Karl Seckendorf, Dirk Stolte, Matt Vanberg, Maria Thoene for their more recent help. Introduction ‘Who, however, is in doubt ‘and’ awe (thaumázein) about a matter doesn’t believe in the thing to begin with. That is why the friend of Stories (mŷthos) is also in a certain way a philosopher; because the Story arises out of awe.’ (Aristotle’s Metaphysics: Book I. Part II) In this fragrantly theoretical treatise aka succulent treatise on theoretics aka hoppy memoir—in this Mereology—Garlic is more than just a mawkish vegetable being added to the ragout of life. Garlic is THE STORY TELLER. Allium sativum facilitates the relationship of events in all their past, present and future tenses. In other words, I am is not the one writing this saga because I am is ragout-in-process. And the best one can ever say for my part in these words is that the I am is just the guy delivering them: The I am is, at most, a maître d' bringing The Story. And as far as Garlic Cures go, they and/or it can be thought of as a living flavor enhancer: Garlic Cures is Spiritual MSG. And as this delectable narrative continues to unfold— as this life slowly simmers on the Burner of Existence—you, lovely reader, will come to understand that Garlic and its Cures is not just my story: The Spiritual MSG and Story Teller have been there for others as well.1 1 But before Garlic gets into what you, lovely reader, may or may come to know, understand or believe, I can says that as long as I am continues to simmer on the Burner of Existence, regardless of my place, time and state of awareness in this bathetic account, there are and will always be other ingredients being added: In some instants it’s a creamy heaping of daily grind and at other times it’s a rich pinch of life changing events finding their way into this here and now amalgam, perking up the overall flavor, and making it, the ragout as it is Existence and Life, even more succulent. Then it is precisely 2 through this arbitrary addition of ingredients, which is ordinarily an uncontrollable act of palatable attributes carelessly mingling into the existential pot and ever-so- smoothly blending with the aromatic ragout, whereby the where, when and how of the mouthwateringly tasty aroma of story gets delivered … capriciousness is without a doubt an absolute Life delivering force: Willy-nilly is the unbounded origin, the soul of souls if you will, that makes it all a truly delicious and smelly affair. Though on occasion, fortunate as it is unfortunate, there are those items, those catastrophic fetid events and bitter olfactory elements, that, when unexpectedly introduced, cause mysterious physical and mental distress: The unsuspecting ingredients, or the for lack of more sophisticated wordage “unexpected” and “unwanted fixings”, that should add, by their very nature of existing and living, extra delicious qualities to the masterful ensemble of potentially scrumptious (and ceaselessly fragrant) ragout but appear to be pushing the dinner toward spoiled. And then, as if the rotten appearance wasn’t enough, as the surprise rank elements continue to addle the stock of one’s Life, the at-one- time enchanting ragout starts to accrue reeking potentiality and stinking possibility only deserving ultimate refuge found in the bottom of a garbage can. This flavor spoilage occurs at a time when the main course, as it is a Life appearing to have evolved beyond mere daily special status, seems to have reached the zenith of Story; and it is then, in such an elevated state, that the Life is not even deserving of the dignity of being served— or at least not even being given the illusion of having become a main entrée that was finally prepared. I don’t want to say at the point where and when one has almost died, because one can never really know how close he or she comes or has come to such an illusion, but there are those defining moments when the ragout needs a new chef—a time when the ragout needs new inspiration. It is the moment when the willy-nilly guide, which has been leading the illusions and delusions of one’s life thus far, turns out to have been little more than a misguided 3 (if not completely deranged) cook with absolutely no cooking sensibilities. Moreover, and regrettably so, much too often a viand-life, when it has reached such a point of despair, is already too lost, too frightened and, therefore, too confused in the mix to hear, smell, see and/or taste salvation, and, subsequently, too insecure to recognize the need for a new chef—the life as ragout simply seems to be no longer appetizing: The Life going, going, gone rank has arrived at the juncture where and when all roads appear to be leading one— the ragout—straight into the rubbish bin.