It Hurts To Remember...

Here is something a friend sent me:

Does familiarity breed contempt? On the contrary, it breeds liking. In the 1980s, social psychologists began showing people such stimuli as Turkish words and Chinese ideographs and asking them how much they liked them. They would show a given stimulus somewhere between one and twenty-five times. The more the subjects saw the stimulus the more they liked it. Needless to say, their subjects did not find it plausible that the mere number of times they had seen a stimulus could have affected their liking for it. (You're probably wondering if white rats are susceptible to the mere familiarity effect.) The study has been done. Rats brought up listening to music by Mozart prefer to move to the side of the cage that trips a switch allowing them to listen to Mozart rather than Schoenberg. Rats raised on Schoenberg prefer to be on the Schoenberg side. The rats were not asked the reasons for their musical preferences.
-- Richard E. Nisbett, Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan --

The reason this information so intrigues me is that I can personally attest to its veracity.
It takes me back to my own childhood, way out on the Saskatchewan prairies.
See, my mother placed two very different types of music on either side of my cage also.
I shall never forget this.
On one side the sweet sounds of Dvorak’s New World Symphony.
On the other, Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida [entire side 1 of the album, of course].
Both played simultaneously and were activated by a switch that was turned on when I was a mere infant and not turned off until I graduated from high school.
I am wondering if this has anything to do with my current habit, now at 45 years of age, of sleeping with the pillow actually wrapped around my head and firmly held there with industrial-strength elastics.

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Splash du Jour: Monday

There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself, when you tell them.
-- Greta Garbo --
I am wondering -- is this unequivocably true?
Was Greta right?

Have a great Monday!
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Constellation: A Saturday Poem

Constellation

There were dots on her shoulder, more than this
I cannot say. In that moment I closed my eyes
and leaned into her
constellation.

Any scientist will tell you that no one has ever escaped
such a journey. Gravitational forces are too great,
and at that speed you are
light.

In that moment, time itself reconsiders, and yet
cannot do anything about its current direction.
Everything you have ever wanted to do, you are
doing.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Splash du Jour: Friday

It's fine work. Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn 'em to ashes, then burn the ashes. That's our official slogan.
-- Montag, in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 –

Have a great Friday!
AND DON’T BURN ANY BOOKS!
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Splash du Jour: Thursday

Could it think, the heart would stop beating.
-- Fernando Pessoa --

Have a great Thursday!
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Even Astronauts Need It...

…Coffee, that is!
I am at Starbucks right now, drinking coffee and reading a great book called Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas.
It’s really speaking to my inner heretic!
The author is Elaine Pagels and this is the second book of hers I have read, the first one being The Origin of Satan. [← Terrific book. Better than this one.]
It is sooooooo cold outside, and very very windy.
But it is so snuggly warm in here, especially with a steaming Starbucks coffee and their new no-charge refill policy in effect.
Hey, I may be here all night!
Coffee!
Sometimes it scares me, how much I love good coffee!

When I was in college, in Peterborough, I had a saying.
I made a sign of it, and affixed the saying to my dorm-room door. I still think it is one of the most profoundest of things I have ever come up with.

“If you don’t have time for coffee, you're definitely too busy.”

My room, (well, my roommate and I)... our room was one that had a steady stream of other students flowing through, filling their coffee cups from our never-ceasing-to-gurgle Melitta© java machine!
I believe in my college-days saying as much now as I did then.

I recall a tragedy that took place a few years ago, when my family and I took a trip out to Hornby Island, off of Vancouver Island. You must take two ferries to get there, it is a rather remote destination.
One boat takes you to Denman Island, and then you drive across Denby to the far side, and get on another boat that takes you to Hornby.
We brought coffee (of course) but the Neanderthal system we had designed to make the coffee.... well, it was not all that great.
Unless we ATE the coffee grounds, we were basically coffee-less for the whole stay on Hornby.
By the end of the first day I was very nearly dead. My sister and I, both.
Seriously almost dead.
By the second day, we wanted to use our last shreds of strength to kill other people, I am not exaggerating. This is how bad it is, for a coffee-drinker to go without!

“Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical” said Jonathan Swift.
“Yes, especially the severe part,” say I.

“Coffee falls into the stomach...ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop... the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink” says Honore de Balzac.
Oh, I so agree.
I do not want a world without coffee.

Wasn’t it J Alfred Prufrock that said he had measured out his life with coffee spoons?

And even if routine space flight is made available to us civilians one day, I ain’t going until someone assures me that there is coffee aboard!
"If you'll excuse me a minute, I'm going to have a cup of coffee." → broadcast from Apollo 11's LEM, "Eagle", to Johnson Space Center, Houston July 20, 1969.

Now -- If you’ll excuse me for a minute, I’m going to go get a free refill.

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Splash du Jour: Wednesday

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds -- how many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives -- and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!
-- John Burroughs (1837 - 1921) –

Have a great Wednesday!
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Splash du Jour: Tuesday

The short story is like an old friend who calls whenever he is in town. We are happy to hear from it; we casually fan the embers of past intimacies, and buy it lunch.
-- R.Z. Sheppard –

Have a great Tuesday!

Splash du Jour: Monday

Lines

Do not like ruled paper.
Give me the blank white page.
Do not want lines.
Much moreso do open spaces
Appeal to the thinker in me.
Would sooner write through them
Than on. The lines I mean.
Whiteness. So if I veer, I veer.
Un-tracked snow for highway.
It is cold to explore. To write
Is to make my own lines.

-- Cipriano –

Have a great Monday!
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The Hunny Jar: A Saturday Poem

The Hunny Jar

The hunny jar had only so much of an aperture.
Wasn’t made for big heavy paws.
So here was this bear whimpering –
and for all I am worth, I swear, a piglet
elbow-deep in the jar.

They spoke to each other, but my heart
drowned them out, and not in fear.
This bear had a red demi-shirt on.
And he was curling his toes, his paws,
as the piglet-thing squeaked and laughed.

Drawing forth a hooflet, the bear’s tongue
lashed out, in a murmur of delight.
You tickle, you tickle, the piglet falling
from the tree stump giggled, and
unbelieving, I stumbled into the bracken.

Bear and pig froze, wide-eyed, as I crouched,
holding my breath, and a dollop fell, uneaten.
Could it be, do you suppose, one of the humans?
whispered the bear. The pig was silent,
but his eyes. Oh, how his eyes changed.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2009

Response to "Arms"

← Albert Einstein, out for a stroll, and yes, the arms do seem to be fairly unswung, smashing my current theory to smithereens….

Wow.
Seldom will I post an email response to one of my blogs [in fact I don't think I have ever done so] but this one was too good.
My nephew Chris, yeah -- That Guy That Is Touring The World©, beginning in its furthest corners? He writes me, about my blog posting of yesterday, entitled Thinking About Arms:

Hey Uncle!
How are you? I hope well!
I don't really have much of a theme to be writing you about, but I was just walking around my small apartment, and suddenly realized how little I swing my arms.
Now don't write me off as crazy or anything (as a matter of fact, I truly have a very good friend who has never been much of an arm swinger, actually his arms are completely devoid of any swing at all, and if you asked me "who is the craziest person you know", the name Dan would whisper in the back of my mind), because I do actually swing them, but I have to say it's less than worth making a fuss about the small amount of actual swinging going on.
I think that maybe the natural state is to walk with a healthy swing - it builds momentum and gives a pleasing aesthetic look to the walker - but maybe this swing is so natural, it is something that can only be forgone by the victim of excessive thought and introversion.
You know those strange kids in school with their heads down, with many colored sweaters draped over their most listless arms? Yeah, but they always got 102% on math tests. Excessive thought.
No, really.
If we are playing charades, and you have to act out someone with a handicap, do you expect to see an excessive amount of arm swinging? Or if you have to act out a nerd, or some mad scientist, is it not true that you would morph into a true biped, forsaking the dangling of fleshy arms?
You should really look into this.
Maybe find footage of Einstein while strolling some garden.
Even in this peaceful setting, I conjecture that the man would have quite stationary appendages.

Having successfully said nothing of importance, I'll stop before I accidentally make this a meaningful email.
Haha,
Be well,
Chris
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Splash du Jour: Friday

When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.
-- Meg Ryan -- (from the movie You've Got Mail)

Have a great Friday!

Thinking About Arms

← Everybody is doing it!




Once again, coming to you live and caffeine-charged from Bookpuddle Headquarters, [a.k.a. Starbucks] at Chapters.
It’s totally packed with people in here, and so I’m looking at them.
Wow.

Do people ever swing their arms a lot when they walk.
Like everyone is doing it, I’m serious.
Unless maybe if their hands are in their jacket pockets, like this one guy right there. But pretty much everyone else... swinging away.
For some reason I feel that if everything all of a sudden went at reduced speed, slow motion like, including the overhead music, people en masse would sort of take on elephant-like characteristics, in their walking. Like elephants on parade sort of, and the arms would be like the trunks, swaying to and fro.
I don’t think I have ever thought about how much people swing their arms.
I wonder if I do it that much too.

I’m going to leave the laptop for a moment and go for a little walk around the place, and I am going to take note of how much I swing my arms and stuff, and also I am going to do a few experiments, like stopping the swinging of my arms and seeing what it feels like and all.

[interlude.... tawk amongst yourselves.....]

Wow.
I swing my arms a real lot when I walk too.
It’s actually sort of difficult to quit doing it, and yet keep walking. You instantly feel silly.
Like, for one thing... OK, I was doing it, hands sort of down at my side, not swinging, and first of all, it is as though your side-to-side movement is all of a sudden exaggerated.
Like the left to right motion of walking, it’s like you are tipping over too much, and it’s real uncomfortable, plus you probably look real dumb doing it.
Strangely though, I wanted to see myself not swinging like that. I was wishing there was a big mirror that I could wobble towards.
Plus I felt like a zombie, or someone that was released from the psych ward of the hospital a wee bit early!
It’s just totally not very normal at all, to not swing your arms.
Why is it that I have this image of crazy lunatic-ish people, walking and not swinging their arms?
I wonder if proper mental health can be linked to some sort of appropriate amount of arm-swinging, when doing normal walking. Somehow I think there must be a standard, like a grid.... something definable.

This much arm-swinging = normal.
That much arm-swinging = not normal.

What’s the deal with the arms-at-your-side zombie-ish feeling?
Try it, you’ll see what I mean.
I think that people should really have a look at what kind of arm-swinging they are doing.
Because let’s face it, you don’t want the opposite problem either, which would be way TOO MUCH arm-swinging.
Not good.
Especially if you are walking through some sort of..... auction-barn at the time!

I better just go on home. I feel dizzy.
Now I’m looking around this place, at other people seated at tables.
And I’m beginning to wonder...... if people’s knees bent the other way, what would chairs look like?

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Splash du Jour: Thursday

Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.
-- Dave Barry --

Have a great Thursday!

Kamouflage Kitty

Can you find the hidden cat in these photos?

He blends in so well with my couch,
sometimes I forget he is there!

The ever regal Jack, after a hard day of....... sleeping.

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Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Have a great Wednesday!
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Splash du Jour: Tuesday

It’s not thinking about what happens after death that’s interesting. It’s realizing that one day you’ll know.
-- Jane, in Garbo Laughs, by Elizabeth Hay --

Have a great Tuesday!

Southpaw

When I was a kid, [and by “kid” I mean as far back as my memory can go] I was terrified about the fact that I would have to learn how to write.
See – I’m a southpaw.
Can’t write a darned thing with my right hand. You should see how utterly useless I am when I try to write something as a northpaw!
And I’ve always been that way. It wasn’t something I PLANNED!
Maybe my mother slept on her left side a lot, when she was gestating me, I don’t know! All I know is that I am a certifiable southpaw.
But I had this crazy uncle.
Uncle Bill.
And he would come over to our house and try to force me to write stuff with my right hand.
I thought he was Satan.
I would cry and cry and cry – I could not understand why it was so important to him that I abandon my natural southpawed-ness. He literally tried to alter me.
When I went to school in Grade One [I did not go to pre-school or kindergarten], again, my teacher Mrs. Oystrick → I began to imagine that she was the wife of Satan!
She too, discouraged my left-handedness. I cried, and cried. I was in agony.
However, my teachers [and other people] began to ease up on me when they realized that I had a natural aptitude for reading and writing. I developed fairly neat handwriting – the only downside being that as a southpaw, when you write in a notebook, the fresh ink gets on the heel of the hand. If heel is the word. But you know what I mean?

By Grade Two I was known as the Library’s most avid reader. My penmanship was impeccable. In a parent teacher interview, my Grade Two teacher, Mrs. Okrainetz [she had one of those B’52’s hairdos, you know? A la Rock Lobster era? That's her in the above photo, hovering in the background, and I am seated on the floor, third from the LEFT!]… oh yeah! Mrs. Okrainetz [you go girl]… total closet-punker – she said to my mom, “There is no way that your son has read all of the books he claims to have read, it is impossible!”
My mom told me about this, and I cried.
So I promptly concluded that Mrs. Okrainetz was the grandmother of Satan!

Anyhoo… all of this to say, listen folks. Ease up on us southpaws, OK?
It is not some sort of sign of retardation or whatever.
Lettuce use our left hands for God’s sake!
I mean, look at me?
I'm an incorrigible southpaw!
And I turned out to be a frigging genius!

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Splash du Jour: Monday

If you were an ancient barbarian, I bet a real embarrassing thing would be if you were sacking Rome and your cape got caught on something and you couldn't get it unhooked, and you had to ask another barbarian to unhook it for you.
-- Jack Handey --

Have a great Monday!
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Just One Bird

This is an amazing short clip of what happens when a jet engine encounters just one bird during take-off. Scary stuff.
I find it impressive how quickly the pilots and ground control leap into emergency measures.
You can see this most clearly in the longer clip of what happened with this flight -- HERE.
[Hear the birds chirping away as the plane returns to the airport?]