light’s only fastest because everything is getting faster and it had a head start
the magic circle
say you were an actual Magick magician, right? and you wanted to hide in plain sight. You want to be able to protect your ancient secrets, and invite new people to learn these hidden mysteries, but you want to be able to talk about it publicly without anyone coming snooping around who wasn’t serious or who wanted to take advantage of you
Yeah, you want to set up a secret group, that is able to trade openly, teach openly, pay taxes, avoid taxes, all the normal stuff… all while protecting your secrets AND your treasures… what do you do?
with that question in mind, let’s think about the occultist and symbolic artist Austin Osman Spare, Grandfather of Chaos Magic. he, among many other things in his weird life, hand-painted his own tarot deck in 1906. 1906!! that’s 3 years before the famous pixie deck was published.
This hand-painted tarot deck is in London, in a museum. The museum of… The Magic Circle.
As in, ta-da alakazam close-up david blaine saw’d your wife up fire-sparkle-shuffle shuffle cut this deck take any card sir bunny from a hat type magic ✨. What’s going on there then?
why is their door like this
why is their logo so?
the latin says something like… “unteachable private speech” i think?
yeah, that’s right. what if the Magic Circle—as in, the guild of party magicians— is a real magick secret society. what better way to hide in plain sight? because these people seem like total dorks… nobody would believe they have the secrets! their whole shtick is that they are dorks who lie about having the secrets!!!!!!
anyway i’m going snooping
httrack
ah, just found out about httrack(1) (available in homebrew brew install httrack). it’s a website mirrorer. it is more straightforward to use for this task than wget --mirror --convert-links --other-arguments-i-forget www.example.com
httrack www.lynxlodge49.comit works, converts the links, downloads everything. it’s great, just what you want.
week 47; 2022
The rest of Sunday evening in Brighton was lovely. We listened to music on the beach, drank wine and beer, went to the train station. At the station we booked an hotel at the last minute. This is tradition now for trips out of town. It was a hotel in a gay bar, we were tired and tired of drinking. In our room we listened to music and played cards with the union jack backed deck we’d won at the arcade on the pier. The kebab shop around the corner from the hotel has an item on the menu by the name of “Mexican Surprise”. Sofia got that. It was just a normal hamburger. A Mexican surprised. It wasn’t long until we went to sleep.
On Monday we woke early but skipped the hotel breakfast, leaving the room and hotel just before check-out time. Rain was pouring heavily and we both got soaked through, seeking refuge in the arcade by the pier. We had a lot of fun throwing balls at clowns and shooting dinosaurs. The wind was blowing very strong, even for the sea. One time, trying to leave, we found the rain so cold and the wind so strong, it blew the wooden shutter off the window of a concessions stand and it took all of both our strength to get it back into place. When the weather that had held us prisoner seemed to wane we made a break for the station. It caught us and drenched us.
On Tuesday we went to the Tate Modern and the Twinings shop, and then the Harry Potter shop at King’s Cross shopping gifts for her sister. We made it to the airport on the Elizabeth line, and said goodbye over airport pub fish and chips next to security. On my way home some dude started following me around the underground which I found unpleasant.
Wednesday was the day of the work social, but I was not feeling great so I skipped it. Thursday saw me wake with a chest infection. Friday it was worse. A couple of days spent reading and taking notes was good, though. I joined BOTA. I made an Irish Stew on Saturday. I made a lasagne on Sunday. Still have a chest infection. Feeling happy, though, and relaxed.
bears should get thumbs
week 46; 2022
sunday…
after the zoo i don’t remember.
tuesday night we went out and had dinner with becky. it was lovely but then after becky left sofia and i had a fight and she left and went to the airport. she came home about 7am.
i did some work i found worthwhile this week. i have high hopes.
went out with people on friday night. saw keran. was good shit. did have a fucked up conversation with someone, but am trying to ignore it.
apart from that… we finished Lodge 49. don’t know what else. oh i got a OB-4 at a discount.
we’re in Brighton today. that beach needs a few more thousand years. the sand is too big. we stood at the ocean’s mouth listening to classical music and taunting it. we’re at brewdog brighton now.
you wouldn’t believe how much i hate myself at the moment.
week 45; 2022
hi. week was nice.
mostly worked and didn’t leave the house, sofia went on adventures during the day. on Friday night we used a voucher to get a hundred fifty pounds worth of alcohol from Majestic. there was a beer tasting event. lots of people. the brewery representative said “hasta luego” when we left. on saturday we went to the zoo. i met the coati who is my favourite animal now. i invited him to jump into my coat and i would bring him home and feed him fresh bees in honey every day, and also mangos. he considered it, i think, but it’s better the devil you know. coati has a big long snout and a bright pink nose upturned at the end. met val, sofia and her got on very well. two tiny friendly ladies. then sofia and i walked down past nelson and large benjamin and sofia enjoyed westminster very well.