OBE Report
Gifts from the brain
During the second 100 days of the war we focused on pushing neuro-scientific buttons by controlling the virtual self from a location directly above the head in order to hover outside the body.
Teleportation is essentially a means of projecting. It’s driven naturally, or you can chew on 5 mg of Coca leaves. The set-up is as follows: run at least five miles a day for for four months at a reasonably fast clip, concentrating on breathing, stride and tempo. Eating fresh fruit and vegetables and regularly getting at least eight hours of sleep (or more) helps create the illusion by speeding up production of the lipid-soluble endocannabinoid called anandamide in quantities to circulate from your blood into your brain.
With the goal of improving commutes in the dark on Fatty Bad Boy I bought one of those small bicycle lamps a couple of months ago, a Lezyne HECTO DRIVE XL. Its box indicates it is a Special Edition. It has impressive maximum output of 500 lumens and eight output modes, including a Daytime Flash mode. Though it was assembled in China, its design and promotion originate in Redmond, Washington. It costs $44, or almost UAH 1,800. That’s about $5 less than the KTV DRIVE PRO SMART REAR.
War-adjacent content milling during the summer has become the stuff of many stories, most of which I will definitely not share.
Arkadiy, who is not in Ukraine, was less than sanguine last week about prospects for the next six months of fascist Russia’s genocidal campaign against Ukraine in his interview with Dmytro the golden-triangle guy.
Melinda Harding at Atlantic Council, meanwhile, pats herself on the back for predicting the invasion in the first place.
Rather than heaping ridicule on Melinda, I leave you with this recipe for Caesar’s Salad:
Buy romaine lettuce only. Anything less rigid will wilt too quickly; anything sturdier, i.e., kale, is not salad. Fill the sink half full of cold water. Tear the lettuce how you like, but remind yourself in doing so that pieces large enough to require cutting with a knife before eating won’t win you any friends. Remove any lettuce that is brown or skanky, agitate the rest in the water, and leave it to soak for a bit.
Make croutons: distribute chunks of stale bread on a cookie sheet, dribble olive oil, salt and pepper, pop under the broiler, tossing occasionally, until toasty but not crunchy. Store-bought croutons are for the idle.
Drain the lettuce and spin, or, in the absence of a spinner, place the leaves in a large tea towel, gather the four corners in your hand and make elaborate windmill motions with your arm, Ã la Pete Townshend (without all the booze and deafness, of course), until centrifugal force does its job.
You will need: a clove or two of garlic, sea salt, tinned anchovy fillets in oil (you can of course use anchovy paste or a bottled sauce, but the tinned taste less of motor oil and funk), Dijon mustard, Worcestershire, an egg (coddled for ten seconds in boiling water), half a lemon, olive oil, a chunk of Parmesan (of sufficient freshness that the cheese curls rather than crumbles when grated), black pepper, a wooden salad bowl, a whisk, and salad tongs or whatever.
On a cutting board, bash the garlic with the side of a knife blade and remove the peel and anything green or brown. Chop the garlic coarsely, and then sprinkle on a pinch of sea salt (this prevents the garlic from sticking to the knife and makes the entire endeavour more pleasant). Chop a bit more, then lay the side of your knife blade against the garlic and, applying pressure with your fingertips against the blade, smear the garlic into the cutting board, back and forth a couple times until it liquefies.
Take two anchovy fillets from the tin and give the rest to the cat. Chop these finely with the garlic, then scoop the whole mess up with your knife and fling it into the bowl.
Fling in a spoonful of mustard and a couple glops of Worcestershire. Crack in the egg. Squeeze in the juice of the half lemon, pluck out the seeds, and whisk it all together.
Keep whisking as you dribble in olive oil. Go slowly: you want the oil to have a chance to thicken and emulsify with the egg; elsewise the dressing will become watery and you will be cross. Check for salt, then leave it be.
When it’s salad time, assemble at the table. Theatrically toss the lettuce and the dressing once or twice while carrying on a conversation, and then leap up and lob the croutons in from across the room. Stand on a chair and grate Parmesan four feet above the bowl. Toss. Run around the table grinding pepper randomly into the air as you chant oh you lucky people oh you lucky people. Toss. Serve.