December 07, 2004

• Uh, slight malfunction on the link I believe.
• What are the random question marks -- were those links that didn't get inserted?
• Why does it get pasted, and then it doesn't exist?
• I'll have to look like a fool again, but if anyone is interested the address is http://holycitysuspensions.com
• I even used BBedit . The dang link should have worked, but changed in the pasting...
• Would you believe this one? http://www.holycitysuspensions.com
• Dan - did the links show up as highlighted when you previewed? If they did, did you click on them to make sure they worked?
• Could it be that the version of BBEdit you used is using "smart quotes" which essentially are the special curly-quotes? Looks like you can replace every question-mark on there (for Firefox users, IE users will see weird control-like characters perhaps). In the multi-platform world, "smart quotes" are bad, and confuse databases and PHP scripts which parse them. They can't tell that a character with an ASCII reference of, purely for example, 0AC2 which might code for "smart" quotes, should be the same as 0990 which might code for straight quotes.
• Dang smart quotes.
• Is it my browser, or does the text on Holy City Suspensions purposely blink on and off so that reading it is nigh to impossible? While the subject sounds interesting, I couldn't bring myself to find go looking for the content.
• Double dang, and hang it!
• It doesn't blink with Explorer, at least on a Mac.
• Please put less of your post on the main page. Catch our attention, then write all you want in the supplementary box. Thank you.
• See that twisted hunk of metal over there, kids? That's where the ol' Spirit of '04 flew clean off them there tracks and took her flaming spiral of death right into the holler. Yup, I 'member it like it was yesterday...
• endorphin addiction. gotta love it.
• people hang themselves from hooks for the same reason others go to church on sunday --- as a ritual to enact that which is the beauty/suffering of life. Passion means 'to suffer'. compassion means 'to suffer with'. When we have the love of something so much that we will suffer for it (a passion for music, a passion for a woman, etc), we are in touch with the true essence and reference of religious metaphors the world over. we will do anything to be with our passion; the absence of which brings great suffering. but is it not in the suffering that we are able to find the center of our being? is it not through the suffering that we discover the full aim and power of our passion? The passion of jesus (as was probably botched horribly by gibson though i don't know because i didn't see it) was his love (compasssion) for all people. the beauty of his suffering comes in the resurrection, a metaphor for all of us. the metaphor teaches us that if we follow the passion of our life and deal with the suffering that following our bliss might bring -- we can die to our ego and resurrect to our spiritual self. the buddha teaches the same thing. all religions refer to this sense of meaning through suffering. an interesting story is that of the devil in christian mythology. as the story goes, when god first made the angels -- they were told only to bow to god for he was their beloved. and all of them did. now, when god made human -- - he asked all the angels to bow to human. all did save for the angel lucifer. the typical interpretation is because he was full of pride and thought he was better than humans, but i've read and agree with the interpretation that says he could not bow to human because of his love for god. he could only bow to god. so he's sentenced to hell --- which can is most astutely defined as "the absence of the beloved." maybe lucifer's mistake was not to recognize the beloved in all of creation. anyway, i digress. how many great writers, musicians, artists came out of war torn countries? were tortured? were riduculed? were abused? etc. Suffering can be a path to redemption. So the physical act of hanging oneself is a ritual enactment of being resurrected . . . of transcendence itself (which refers to 'that which can't be named). It's certainly not for everyone. It's certainly not for me. But it's an understandable practice in a culture with no common set of mythological references --- entactments -- symbols, etc. People are trying to make their own rituals. All of life is a meditation. mostly we meditate on food, social duty, sex, and money. Hanging from some hooks, however, is one very physically/mentally direct way of moving beyond the physical form and into the realm of mystical. does it work? i'm not sure. i find that drugs do just fine for me. jk? anyway, most of my ideas are hacked from Joseph Campbell's works (if anyone was interested).

• In the multi-platform world, "smart quotes" are bad,

  Not necessarily. One cat “get” them with the right entities: “ ”.
• Stupid sexy smart quotes.
• I stand corrected, rodgerd! And what rolypolyman said.
• I transcend pain but taking Tylenol #3
• WHY IS THIS POST SHOUTING IN THE SIDEBAR?
• Whaaat??
• So they hang from hooks - does that make them kooks? Thinking transcending pain Leads to spiritual gain. Life's a whole other feeling When you hang from the ceiling, Existential relief A suspension of disbelief.
• well i'm glad you all had a chance to hear about my story a little bit... I want to make clear though that the article was not meant to put people off or even to talk too much about suspension itself; it was meant to talk about the ridiculous jailtime i have to serve because the local police does not understand it and is abusing their power... as for the several comments referring to website, our server sucks and sometimes things simply don't work. as for right now, all the links and junk work and there are over 1000 disturbing pictures for all you... as for why we do it... lots of reasons... i personally think it is just fun, but the reasons vary greatly.... again, i thank you all for being at least somewhat open minded towards me and my suspension team...
• A probably unnecessary clarification: A basic tenet of Buddhism is that suffering exists. For anyone to try to induce suffering is therefore unnecessary, since it comes with the package tour, so to speak.