Seasons Greetings

Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year

to all of you

The Elaborate Chest

A small team of investigators was sent to discover the truth of a man who made miracles. When they got to the home of the man, they found instead an elaborate chest, which took up much of the house. The chest had many strange drawers and curious sliding doors. There were heavy handles and delicate latches. There were swinging compartments and folding mirrors and nesting chambers. Inside the chest the investigators found many curious things. They found clothes of an odd cut, with small stories embroidered on their pockets. They found beautiful boxes filled with dried dead things. They found shoes that were missing vital parts, and hats with too many additions. They found a cat with six kittens, and ten paper dolls, and a dozen old keys, and a lonely glove. They found small bundles tied up with bright sashes, and empty tins with labels long worn thin. They found milk teeth and seashells and smooth river stones. They found instruments they could not figure out, and tools they could not fix. The investigators spent a long time looking through the elaborate chest. At last the people who paid the investigators demanded to hear. Has the man made miracles? 

Come, said the investigators, come see the elaborate chest.

 

PREDICTIONS

PREDICTIONS
(Not necessarily in this order)

The Republican over-reach across state governments will create a huge pendulum swing of popular Progressivism, lead by liberal Democrats, back into immediate power. Infrastructure spending will increase dramatically and government will take an active part in growing labor and the middle class again in the United States. Through vast changes in taxation, Wealth disparity will drop again to historic lows.

The economic and environmental collapses of society will cause New Political Parties to emerge that are powerful enough to shake the two-party structure from their hold on power in the U.S.

The United States will declare a specific state of war-like intent against Pakistan's Military. It will be difficult but decisive. India will grow in power with strategic alliances across the globe.

Shocking revelations will cause the Judiciary branch to be transformed.

An environmental catastrophe will unite the country like never before.

Technological innovations will force a new wave of transparency in every level of American Government. This will be fought against hard but unsuccessfully by those in power. As a result, fewer wars will be fought, and the 'industrial war complex' will start producing spaceships instead of bombs. 

Through technological breakthroughs, the very nature of banking will become massively decentralized and de-coupled from current nation-state banking oligarchies. The financial sector will shrink accordingly, but over all productivity will grow subsequently.

Alex Baldwin will become president of the United States of America. He will win by a shocking majority and will be deemed one of the best presidents America ever had.

Huge regional attitude differences will cause both California and Texas to split into two states. Puerto Rico will become a full-fledge state, Cuba will follow. Seeing swift transformational power from these new statehoods, led largely by aging-but-active Boomers wanting to visit 'all the states',  Haiti, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic will also join. Lastly Mexico will join to become the 58th state of the newly re-formed United States of The Americas, which will move to a more parliamentary system. The country will have several official languages, but Miniaturized Instantaneous Translation Technology will make this distinction largely unimportant.

Global Warming will continue, flooding vast parts of the globe, pushing warmer weather farther north, and causing more extreme weather. Southern dry areas will become less and less habitable without massive cooling technologies. Countries in these areas will develop new digging technologies that move large amounts of the pollution underground.

Canada's population and GDP will grow exponentially, until it become a Global Super-power, called Canadana. Greenland's population will also boom, and become a pivotal power of the arctic ocean, bridging European and Canadanian interests. Alaska's political independence will be granted in an effort to not 'lose it to Canadana.' Within five years it will reapply to the United States of The Americas. 


Massive volcanic activity in South America and large portions of Asia will have disastrous effects on populations but will temporarily help cool the planet down. South and Central American countries will create a new co-prosperity sphere that will raise the standard of living up drastically and reduce wealth disparity significantly.

Decriminalization laws for most drugs in the United States of The Americas and Canadana will cause most crime syndicates to lose power across much of the globe.

After the painful collapse of the failed banking system, The European Union will revive and grow significantly stronger by leveraging relationships across their third-world former colonies across the globe. More countries will join. They will establish the first bases in the inner-solar system. Mars will have an EU based colony before any other nation or group.

Global warming will drastically change the Russian landscape, weather, and lastly, temperament of the people.  The country will start opening up democratically and will harness their vast resources to become a major exporter of everything. Russian tourism will become highly advanced, as vast unspoiled tracts of nature become increasingly sought after around the globe.

The 'Arab Spring' will sweep south across Africa, taking down dictators and ousting political entrenchment. New alliances will form that bring many countries into a new and better era. Stunning achievements will be achieved in energy production and energy storage, upending the oil-regimes of the past. The Middle East will experience a new intellectual and cultural Renaissance, ushering in a new type of moderate Moslem culture based on inclusivity and parity. Isreal society will become both less Zionistic and more expansionary. Their political system will become less focused on Judism's centrality and more focused on regional stability. Palestine will become a state within the country of Greater Isreal. The collapse of neighboring countries' political structures will open the door for a new EU style co-prosperity sphere that incorporates the entire Arabian Pennisulla, parts of North Africa, and Western Asia.

China's Communist government will collapse against the forces of modernity and economic upheavals across the globe. China's political system will be utterly transformed with less centralized power and more regional authority. Nevertheless, the Middle Kingdom will establish a permanent colony on the moon. From there they will swiftly colonize the inner system planets, and start asteroid belt bases.

New technologies will surface that allow people to tell when someone is lying. All established political structures will collapse and new more open ones form in their place. All political power will become massively decentralized and much more localized. This will be seen as a good thing.

Human-robotic hybridization will rapidly transform humanity. We will live significantly longer, and on less resources. Genetic engineering will further self-transform our species. New Racial distinctions will become scientifically genuine, rather than culturally-affixed surface distinctions. Humans will become Post-Humans. We will spread across the solar system. Then, in a surprising but simple discovery, across the vast gulfs of space to other star systems.

Earth will be all-but forgotten.

Jason Messinger is an artist and writer working in Chicago. His tile murals, sculpture, paintings and drawings are in public, corporate, and private collections throughout the US, Europe, Asia, and Australia. His writing is as diverse as his artwork, with illustrated poetry collections, fantasy fiction novels, and essays about modern life.

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The Insect Diviner on KINDLE
Storytelling on KINDLE
Eating The Child Within for KINDLE  
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Book Release Friday May 13th, 6-10 pm

During the Cornelia Arts Building Spring Open House Jason Messinger will be offering a limited selection of Print Editions of his books Eating the Child Within, The Insect Diviner, and Storytelling.  
Join him Friday May 13th, from 6-10 pm, at the Cornelia Arts Building, 1800 West Cornelia, Chicago, (entrance on Ranvenswood). 
There you can purchase limited autographed copies of his new books, see a special show of landscape and cityscape artwork by guest artist Joey Wozniak and Jason Messinger, and enjoy the work of over 27 artists and artisans in their working studios. 
Entrance if free, refreshments will be served. Also enjoy specially reduced studio prices on all artwork in Jason Messinger's studio #204.

Storytelling Book Release

Semi-autobiographical poetry from the author of "Eating The Child Within" and "The Insect Diviner". Covering topics as diverse as detecting a ghost, losing a friend, or discovering the stories you learned as a child were falsehoods, or as current as Binti Jua - the Gorilla who caught a falling child, American consumerism, and the Golf Oil disaster, Jason Messinger's words "glint like sunlight off fish scales beneath a tumbling creek."

Storytelling in PRINT 

Storytelling as PDF File Download 

Story Telling On Kindle Thru Amazon

The Insect Diviner Book Release

A collection of micro-stories. A princess with a glass foot, a king who only eats swans, the queen of heat. An insect diviner, a sweet smith, a sword swallower, a thistle boy. A secret herb, an elaborate chest, a sandcastle that makes the sea cry. In this collection of short tales Jason Messinger creates small tapestries in the mode of classic fairy tales, but for a reader of modernist sensibilities.
  
The Insect Diviner in PRINT 

The Insect Diviner as PDF Download 

The Insect Diviner on KINDLE

Eating the Child Within - New Edition Book Release

Eating the Child Within - new edition
A dark collection of poetry based on sixteen classic children's fairy tales, reworked into adult stories of desire, violence, lust, and betrayal.

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Eating The Child Within for KINDLE  

Eating The Child Within - PRINT Edition 

Pinocchio

Pinocchio

In the cities
men sit chained
to hollow lives
on pressboard desks.
Counting out their hours,
doling out their pay,
saving up their joy
for their vacation,
a holiday,
a sunny-gray.

In the country
men walk chained
to empty lives
on dirt swept ground.
Chaffing out a living,
toiling out a future,
saving themselves up
for their retirement,
a second breath,
a little death.

Pity these mortals
fashioned from blood and bone,
shaped by fears and desires.
Winching themselves into darkness.
Slicing their years like bread.
Staving off all hopes, all dreams
to become real, to become
alive.

Once there was a golem,
an artificial man,
boy, really.
Made of hewn wood
and heavy string.
Jointed he danced
a soulless dance.

This puppet-fetch
was without flesh
or emotion’s tug.
Empty as a beach ball,
his face smiled
at his maker,
who wished for more
from his hand-forged toy.

Through this wish
and supernatural caprice
the puppet-boy
became.
More than toy,
less than man.
Alert, but not alive,
in the heavy sink of
consciousness.

He blinked into life
and snipped his strings.
Looked in awe at his hard limbs.
Cruel joke, sublime,
a boy of wood
in a world of flesh.

“What man am I
to stand without support,
to move without the tug
of forces above?
Is this freedom the meaning
of alive?”

He leaves his maker’s hovel
and bends to the road,
meeting deceivers along the way.
Learning the value of a lie.
Finding debauchery
for his wooden frame,
pleasures for his
rough carved flesh.

“What life is this
to speak without truth,
to live without the tug
of morals?
Is this freedom the meaning
of alive?”

He discovers a cricket
chirping wetly of tears.
Little voice to guide his way,
lead him not astray.
An insect Jesus,
a locust guide.

“Return to your home!
Love your maker!
Tell the truth!” rasps
the harried bug.
This moral stance, lofty and high,
from far far below
his wooden shoe.

Heeding his guide,
he steps around
this vermin conscience
and returns home
via whale’s gut,
sacrificing his life for his maker’s
along the way.

And wakes from death.
His wood transformed
to blood and bone,
his paint to hair
and eyes and teeth.
His joints thickened,
his skin thinned.

“What irony is this
to lose one’s life in love
but gain one’s dream through death?
Is this justice the meaning
of alive?

“Rejoice! For now you are
real!” yells the toymaker,
his true father.
“Rejoice! For love
has conquered death!”
squeaks his tiny companion
across razored legs.

Rejoice! For where there
were lies, truth blooms
thick with thorns.
Where you sought pleasure, now
you’ll know pain, the gift of life,
the drama of being
alive.

The boy grows up,
and learns of duty. Buries
the cricket the following winter,
his father in the flush of spring.
Takes on the family trade,
carving toys for fat children
of rich merchants.

“What chore is this
to toil through days
and slumber through nights?
Is this bleak future the meaning
of alive?”

Squinting in the failing light
of his mortality,
stooped into his loneliness,
his heart sighs
and his hands caress
the little puppet
he fashions
from clay.
 
- From 'Eating the Child Within',
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