Tiptoe Tiger E52 🐯| One last I love you and I always have ☘️

Edition #52 | 14-legged romance, Tongue stuff, It's alive!, Checked out, I wish I was Nina Simone

Hello and fare-thee-well soon,

It is with a puckered heart I write you, bittersweet that in over a year of writing you these transmissions from the Tiptoe Tiger dimension, this is the last one.

Like I’ve stated before, this will not be the last piece published on Tiptoe Tiger but it does mark an end to our regularly scheduled programming.

But it is not the absolute end! I’m still going to use this as a publishing platform and I’d like to do more special articles, investigations, guest editions (if you’d like to write & curate a Tiptoe Tiger, let me know), and so on. These won’t come in any sort of regular intervals as I’m freeing myself from the weekly cadence that (as you know) I had already deviated from a little bit.

All of this said, it’s been a blast sharing Tiptoe Tiger with all of you. Thank you for your continued support. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…

This week:

• The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly

• Khechari Mudra

• Ensouled Machines

• Slacker

• After You’ve Gone (Live) - Nina Simone

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The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly

In one of the earliest Tiptoe Tigers, I mentioned my practice of memorizing poems. This poem, The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly by Vachel Lindsay, is the latest I’ve added to my internal canon. I love it, found it in a poetry anthology this week.

cute.

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Khechari Mudra

Warning: this is kind of some freaky shit but firmly up our alley here.

Anything that involves ancient texts and doing weird things with the body that 99% of people can’t do and have never heard of or thought of, is exactly what I want to know about and to share with you.

So below, you are going to see a video of a man (I think he’s human at least but something in his eyes suggests otherwise) explaining how he trained his tongue to draw back into his throat and behind his nasal cavity and you can too! This move, in Vedic scriptures, is called the Khechari Mudra (sick name) and supposedly is a powerful tool for focus. All I know is that if I pull this off, I’m making my entire income off of betting people at parties whether this is possible or not.

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Ensouled Machines

I had a long conversation with my friend Aidan this past week on the ensoulment of machines.

The basic concept here is that any sufficiently complicated machine starts to gain something of a rudimentary soul. Therefore, this soul would come with desires, inclinations, and a personality. Ever cursed at a wifi box or cajoled a car that didn’t want to start? You might know what I’m talking about.

This conversation was stirred by two things: I’d just finished reading Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon (so good, I’m sad I finished). One of the plot threads of the book involves a French inventor making a highly sophisticated mechanical duck. This duck becomes ensouled and falls in love with a chef. There’s also a half of a chapter that consists of two clocks talking to each other.

I hadn’t thought much of these except for Pynchon having a little fun, that is, until I saw a thread on twitter this week with an image from tumblr and a lot of personal anecdotes on machine ensoulment. I’ll leave some screenshots here:

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Slacker

I watched Slacker by Richard Linklater for the first time this week and really enjoyed it. It’s a lot like his film Waking Life and features nearly constant dialogue in a heady and surreal world of odd interactions.

If you’re unfamiliar, don’t go in expecting to be engaged with in the same way a normal narrative would. Exploring ideas of checking out of society, conspiracy, violence, heaven and hell, listlessness, the film can get a little dense so don’t be afraid to take a refreshing little intermission with someone sweet if you need to.

The movie is filmed and set in Austin in ‘89 and ‘90. I know a good chunk of my readers live in Austin (as I used to) and if you do, I know this film will really scratch the itch of getting a feel for what the city used to be.

The whole thing is on Youtube for free and can also be streamed on Hulu & Prime apparently.

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After You’ve Gone (Live) - Nina Simone

1956

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Thank You!

It’s been fun. Thank you all for making writing Tiptoe Tiger such a good experience. I hope I was able to add a little something special to your week.

A fond farewell,

Rob Hogan

Tiptoe Tiger’s Amiable Acolyte

Tip is optional & delightful: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/robhogan