Jeffrey Alexander Martin

This little bio on myself is giving me difficulties. My mother and my aunt have now informed me that they were both confused when I said I wasn't eccentric. I thought it was obvious sarcasm, but obviously I was wrong. I will try to fix this darn thing. Here is what we are starting with. - - - - - - - Jeffrey Alexander Martin: He has jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, climbed a mountain, swam through a group of freshwater jellyfish while scuba diving, rafted whitewater, wrestled alligators, ran with bulls, jumped horses, bruised his ribs doing winter luge, vomited blood in Africa, received a black eye and a bloody nose in a tomato fight, has the weirdest resume ever, and has four major spinal deformities. He's just a simple guy with a simple life from Michigan, USA. No one has ever called him eccentric a single time in his entire life. He is oddly transparent at JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com - - - - - - - The only rules are that it has to be 100 words or less an...

Dream interpretation is quite an art. A lot of people are interested in it and look at it lightly, but it can be quite a serious endeavor. It can also be quite complex. Most people don't seem to understand the basic ideas, hopefully this will help provide a little insight. This was posted in a dream interpretation group I'm in. Often, people are really searching for answers, but they haven't read Freud or Jung and don't really seem to understand where to begin. Also, it can be hard to get a more objective view of your own dreams, thoughts, and ideas, which is why it helps to have other people to talk to. - - - - - - - Packo Hi guys, there are a lot of smart People in this group i know by the questions you guys post, i Wonder if you cold guide me: i had a dream Last night with a New born "Fénix", i actually helped it out of the "egg" (i know i know Fenix doesn't reborn though eggs), what could this possibly mean? - - - - - - - Obvio...

Writing styles are like ice cream, you either like them or you don't. But, there is an art and a craft to learning how to make ice cream, and the same goes for writing style. This was posted in one of my writing groups a couple of months ago. - - - - - - - Dennis If one person says to another, “Do you have any idea, how beautiful you are?” then what does the comma signify? - - - - - - - Now, Dennis doesn't give us the context, just a sentence and an odd question. By itself, I don't like this sentence. Maybe you do, that's okay, remember that ice cream flavor preference is personal and so is writing style. Taste in all of its forms is personal. Alas, I think that the comma breaks the sentence up in an odd way. You could, of course, read it that way. "Do you have any idea (short pause) how beautiful you are?" It makes sense, I just don't like the flow. I use commas a lot, and I use them in slightly unusual ways. That's because that's h...

Mensa is a high IQ society. The Facebook groups are quite odd to participate in. They mostly demonstrate that you can have a high IQ and be a good person, or a bad person, an informed person, or an uninformed person. Often, a high IQ just gives you the ability to confuse yourself more. High fluid IQ means that you have the capacity to recognize patterns faster than the average person. High concrete IQ means that you know more of these patterns in a given society than the average person. But, I digress. Here is a math problem that seemed to stump everyone in the group, except for me (I think that's just the right amount of hubris). Someone posted this problem and called it a math paradox. - - - - - - - If you choose an answer to this question at random, what is the chance you will be correct? A) 25% B) 50% C) 60% D) 25% - - - - - - - Go ahead and give your answer and then see if you think I'm right after you read the rest of this post. I take no offense if yo...

In a writing group a few months ago someone made a flash fiction challenge: Write a story in four words. That's a hard challenge, but I think I came up with a good one. I reveal it to you now. There is a unique skill and a unique talent involved in this unique challenge. It's called closure. Scott McCloud talks about it in his excellent book Understanding Comics. It's about the space in between. In the case of comics it's about the space in between the panels, in between the drawings, where we imagine what's needed to connect them. In prose and poetry there is also closure, it's about what happens in between what you say (not to mention before and after). In such a short piece of flash fiction there has to be a lot of closure. The writer must rely on the reader to fill in a lot of the space. Are you ready for my four word story? Here it is. - - - - - - - She sighed, walked away. - - - - - - - You can see what I mean. What happened right before th...

Writing groups can have aggressive stances on their views. This is one. Someone had asked about some sort of writing advice. It was something like not being able to do only showing and not telling. I responded. Then this Heather person responded. She's a normal type of online attacker that's not a very deep thinker. It isn't a great conversation, but it does show some interesting things. - - - - - - - Jeff(1) - When reading books you'll find that most writing advice is primarily bull. Heather(1) - Show don't tell isn't though. Jeff(2) - It is. When you read authors you'll notice that some of the greats do a lot of telling. Jeff(3) - That's why people like Ursula K. Le Guin say that show don't tell is bull. Heather(2) - No, it isn't. More of the greats show and advocate for it. Cite your source about Ursula Le Guin and feel free to name these greats who primarily tell. Heather(3) - Btw I've read all of her books. She does p...

I'm always generating ideas for writing. Often, I make a note of them. Here are, a few... Pro-Global Warming. Other than temporary trouble along the coasts for some people for a little while, overall global warm would be good for humans. It would open up large land areas that are currently not useful. Global cooling is the really scary thing. It would also be good for vegetation. I haven't heard anyone else make this argument before. I thought it out from first principles. Can long-term weather patterns, climate, stay the same or does it have to change? Change. Would it be worse if it was warmer or colder? Colder. What would be bad if it was warmer? The coasts would rise. What would be better if it was warmer? More useable land area, more water, more vegetation. The Moral Case for Meat Consumption. The more that I've learned, a lot through experience, about diet the more it seems to me that societies are healthier the more meat and fermented foods that they eat. Mika...

Cannibalism seems very odd to me. But, for some reason, it is fairly pervasive in our narratives. Let's explore it and see if any insights jump out at us. Little Red Riding Hood is about a girl that goes on a trip through the woods and encounters cannibalism. Now, everyone knows that it's a wolf that eats grandma, but it's a highly personified wolf. It's a wolf that talks like humans, and looks like humans, and acts like humans. Personification is an amazingly powerful mental ability, and we all have it naturally. In this case it means that the wolf is like a person, so when he eats grandma that's cannibalism. The Three Little Pigs is about a wolf that's trying to eat these pigs, all of which are personified, so there's cannibalism right there. But, when he gets to the last house, the brick house, he can't blow it down and decides to climb down the chimney. The pigs have arranged a giant pot of boiling water at the bottom filled with vegetables an...

Welcome to the third installment of my articles for 88.9 Hey Radio. I'm not sure which angle I should take on this one. Rusty Shipp is an odd band, I guess I'll probably take that angle. - - - - - - - You can never say that Rusty Shipp is not an ambitious band. First of all, they are in the middle of leading the founding a new music genre called Nautical Rock'n'Roll. Their first album Mortal Ghost won some awards, but this seems to be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. They're raising money for their second album now and there is a special project in the works. While on a silent meditation retreat the founder of the band, Russ T. Shipp, had an idea for a concept album which they are calling Liquid Exorcist. This will be a full narrative about the after-effects of an underwater sea war. Rusty Shipp has the feeling of classic rock, melodic hard rock, with a little twist. I like the existential questioning in the song SS Naronic, which is about the sh...

Theoconceptualism is a new theological philosophy. Today, we shall cover a lot. Later we will need to filter and expand, but today is just about getting some of the notes initially articulated. Hold on to your hats, because this is going to go quickly, and in an order that has not been worked out. The Nature of God God is a conceptual reality. Rather than placing God under metaphysics, God comes under the study of epistemology, and then that effects ethics. Rather than material, God is spiritual. A good way to understand this truth might be to think of dragons and/or monsters. Dragons are real. They are real conceptual entities. They are the ultimate small mammal predator. The great mouth and head of a reptilian snake/alligator, that breathes fire, with the wings of a great bird of prey, and the claws of a great predatory cat. This concept is a real concept. We have pictures and toys of dragons. We know how dragons act, and we know how to act when we encounter a dragon. And,...