Okay, probably the first thing I should tell you is that I have always had a peculiar habit/reaction when listening to certain music. A particular drum flourish, or a guitar lick, will make me laugh. It's somewhere between humor and delight; as if the instrument was talking and making a joke. Or nudging me with an elbow saying, "Huh? Huh? How ya like me now?" It's really hard to put into words. It's a very distinctive feeling of like a shared in-joke, playful and joyful. This reaction in me is completely involuntary, and I never know what music will do this if I haven't heard it before.

Cut to my single experience breaking through. In retrospect, I realized that what I experienced was the same thing that McKenna was describing, the "self-dribbling jewelled basketballs" saying, "Look at this! Look at that!"

I mean yeah, they were vaguely round. They had a multifaceted appearance. They produced permutations that were presented for consideration. I can see how someone could describe it that way.

But to me, it was more like this: I was in some other dimension so completely removed from mine in terms of anything that makes sense, that there is no way to conceive it. Nevertheless, here were these entities, "conversing" with me. Their utterances, such as they were, consisted of, uh, like a combination of origami and a tesseract. I felt like my brain was being turned outside-in and also sideways (for certain alien values of "side" ) in hitherto unimagined ways at millions of angles that aren't on the map. Notions of folding and multifarious fundamental transformation predominate. They would invert/discombobulate/do a kaleidoscope thing, and by way of this they were saying something, each one presented to the group of us in a way that is like a bon mot but also like a move in a sophisticated rollicking game -- and each one was unutterably funny. Clever, witty, debonair (though ungendered of course) and just really, really funny. Delightful.

So today I was sitting listening to one of the songs that has the aforementioned effect on me. It's the drums. I love the drums. They sparkle with masterful and wit. And I began to see that there is a striking similarity between the conversation I had in hyperspace, and the conversation I pick up in music. I think it's somehow patched through the same dimension, or it's speaking the same language. It's much deeper than words.

The name of the song? "I'll Take You There." (Staple Singers) Of course. It's another joke.;-)

We understand you....we think, and we LOVE Mavis Staples ...

Intezam: Wow, dude, never heard that before! Pretty cool jam.