In honor of Halloween I am reading a scary book, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. So far there have been no witches in the book, but for some reason [maybe it is the combination of having recently read the life of Einstein]... all morning long I’ve had one question rolling around in my head and it simply will not let me alone. It involves witches and gravity. If for no other reason than to exorcise the quandary of it all, I will here elucidate my current thoughts on the matter.
The question is this:
What happens when a witch falls off her flying broom?
At first glance this may seem like merely a whimsical question concocted for an extremely brief moment of possible hilarity, a question for which no real answer is intended or expected.
But no. Nothing of the sort is going on. I don’t even think the question is very funny, to be honest! I am asking it in all earnestness and want to submit it to the due process of valid interrogation.
Let us imagine that tonight, this very Hallowe’en night, you are pretty much minding your own business, doing what you usually do on the evening of October 31st, namely, answering the door for all the hobgoblins and Frankensteins that are out trick or treating.
So... a small flock of trick-or-treaters have just arrived on your doorstep and are holding forth their pillowcases and plastic pumpkins in hopes that you do not give them something that falls into either one of the two most dreaded categories: anti-Hallowe’en religious propaganda and fruit.
In our current scenario, you have flicked the porch light on to see a small assemblage of amateur ghouls and vampires and whatnot else. You turn to get more handfuls of candy from the big bowl in the hallway.
Just as you turn back towards the kids, the witch flies by.
A real one though.
There she is, just over their heads and a few blocks distant.
You freeze.
You pee your pants a bit.
The kids see the instant terror on your face.
Just as they all turn to see what is causing such concern, the witch lets out a raucous cackle and kicks her heels. The broom lurches forward in a wild spurt of speed and she topples backwards.
Boots over nose-wart, she falls from the broom.
Thinking you’ve staged the event, the kids turn back towards you and applaud.
But what happens next?
There are only a limited number of possibilities to consider, and I intend to consider them.
Here is the real issue: At what point, and to what degree, does normal gravity over-ride the powers of witchery?
Does the witch plummet to the ground, in which case all of the magical power of flight must be supposed to reside in the broom, which, (one would think), would still be buzzing around in some sort of blindly erratic witchless flight path in the sky until it crashed into something?
Or when the witch falls, does the broom fall also? Simultaneously?
In other words, is the broom merely a normal broom, vested with aeronautic power only when the hands of the witch are upon it? Can it fly at all, without the witch at the helm?
Herein lies a problem though --> If they BOTH fall, then it would seem to me that both are subject to an outside power that has simultaneously failed them both. As though a spell were suddenly broken.
Is witchery subject to gravity?
The fact that she was flying around at all (prior to falling off) would seem to answer that question “No.”
But if, upon falling from the broom, she merely floats in the air and does not plummet, we must wonder what the hell she needs the broom for in the first place! Perhaps for greater speed?
Let’s say she does fall, like a screaming bag of rocks and hair!
Well, if the witch has her own magical powers which she can conjure at will, certainly she would conjure some quickly, to save herself prior to hitting the ground. However, if she in fact does this in this instance, then one must inquire once again as to the purpose of the broom in the first place. If she is now sort of still flying (as it were)... broomless, prior to hitting the ground, surely she could have flown in this fashion earlier, when she initially set out from her lair, and prior to the accident which we have observed.
If the role of the broom is merely to provide something to sit on while in flight, might the witch not have been better off to select one of those plush La-Z-Boy recliners, with the pump-action footrest thingy on the side there? Wouldn’t she rather fly around town in that? I know I would.
Perhaps recliners and sofas do not steer as well as a broom?
Is maneuverability the thing?
[I am not being sarcastic, and in no way am I ridiculing the principles of witch-flight... I really and sincerely would like to come to some conclusions in these matters....]Would a workable formula be something like F = bw2?
[Flight = broom X witch, both?]
Here is yet another scenario which is entirely possible. As the witch accidentally falls from her broom, it swoops down quickly and catches her up before she reaches the ground.
Hmmmmm.
This is not a satisfactory answer for me. It seems too cartoonish. Remember, we are talking about a real Hallowe’en witch here, not some trumped up thing. Anyone who believes this latter scenario [the Swooping-Broom Theory] to be a valid possibility, probably also believes that WWF wrestling on TV is real.
At any rate, I think that I have exhausted at least a few of the possibilities.... I feel a lot better for just having talked it out a bit, you know? Thanks for hearing me out.
There are inherent problems in specifics, related to witchflight and sudden effects of gravitational pull. There is just no way around it. Like other things in life, there are no easy answers.
For now, until some of you may come up with better suggestions, I am going to maintain that there are only two possible (mutually contradictory) conclusions I can theoretically consider as being currently tenable.
They are this:
1) Witchflight is a myth. Witches exist, but do not fly on brooms.
2) Witchflight is real. Witches exist and fly on brooms, but never ever fall from them.*********
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
-- George Orwell, in Politics and the English Language --
Have a great Friday!
********
I listen to talk-radio more than I listen to music radio. The main reason is because I hate repetition. I hate when the latest hits get played right into the ground over the course of a workday. Repitition irks me!
<-- Unless what is being repeated is Nelly Furtado.
Whoa Nelly!
So there is this new song by James Morrison and it's called Broken Strings.
I could listen to this song a million times and still love it because it is just so well-written, well-produced, and [like Nelly] flawlessly put together.
I think it is one of the best duets I have heard in a long long time.
The perfect blend of voices.
This James Morrison guy is fantastic, but I think the song just goes crazy as soon as Nelly gets in there at about 1 minute and 35 seconds. It just takes off from there and pretty much goes into orbit.
Once in a blue moon a song like this comes along and restores my faith in good music.
To hear it for yourself, CLICK on Nelly, above! Turn it up good and loud!
Whoa Nelly!*********
Have a great Thursday!********
A spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe -- a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort.
-- Albert Einstein --
Have a great Wednesday!
*******
I have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. It means to me now -- only that place where the books are kept.
-- John Steinbeck --Have a great Tuesday!********
If you've been paying attention AT ALL to my eating habits as revealed here on Bookpuddle, you will know what a change of gears this is for me.
<-- Sushi!
Seriously.
Not kidding.
I actually ate this stuff today and it was FANTASTIC!
The photo you see here, with Einstein hovering in the background, this was the scene in the lunchroom -- well, just before I slathered that stuff in soy sauce. See the little packets of it there?
Mmmmmm, honest-to-God, it was delightful.
Filling, in a very non-heavy way.
I think my body was a bit shocked. As this pile of sushi began falling into my gut, I could actually hear my entire gastrointestinal system crying out -- "What the hell?"
Usually at this exact moment it is receiving stuff that used to be a cow!
I'm going to do this again, for sure, the sushi thing.
This particular tray was called Spicy California Maki. I even used those wooden things that came with the whole kit.
I refrained from the wasabi sauce.... see the small green packet of it there?
My co-worker Teo grabbed it, ripped it open, and emptied the entire thing out onto what he was eating at the time. Just as he was shoving a forkful of it into his mouth I said, "I don't think you want to be doing that, man!"
It completely healed him of a sinus problem he's had since childhood!
All in all, an interesting afternoon in the ol' lunchroom.*********
Flipping The Pages
Concentration level. Lack of distraction.
Both of these factor into the final equation.
Mb + Hb = Siadf. And "b" is a constant.
We are reading the same book!
I lower my sunglasses and do that lateral
eyeball roll, trying to see her page number.Good Lord! It's not possible. 135?
We've only been here on the beach an hour!Let's see, that guy came around with drinks,
and then, oh yes, I snoozed a bit, but still!
How can I only be at 35? Without the 1 in front!
My book + Her book = She is always done first.
c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009
Is it the weekend yet?
You know, lately, what with the change of seasons and all and that thing they do with the clocks, I am waking up when it is dark out and I'm setting the alarm of my building at work when it is..... [can you guess the next words?]........ yeah, WHEN IT IS DARK OUT.
This just isn't right.
Because it leaves so little time for more important things.
Like -----
1) drinking coffee.
2) Reading, while drinking coffee.
3) Eating a hamburger after you've had enough of the above.
4) Switching to beer, later on.
Stuff like that.
But it's the weekend. Lettuce be thankful.
I mean -- work is screwing up my entire life, I'm sorry.
Now, take a look at this picture here:
See, that is a photo is of an actual Library somewhere in Australia.
I am adopting it as my Personal Version of Heaven.
Here is what I want to happen... --
So I win the Lottery, and that week it just happened to be $20 million.
No.
$22 million.
Dollars.
So I buy a house next to this Library.
END OF STORY.
I know you want more. But there IS no more!
Leave me alone. I'll be fine.
Leave me alone.
Leave me alone, leave me alone, leavemealoneleavemealone!********
Have a great Friday!*******
QUESTIONS TO EINSTEIN:
To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?
"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and the Talmud. I am a Jew but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."
You accept the historical existence of Jesus?
"Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."
Do you believe in God?
"I'm not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."
-- From Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson --Have a great Thursday!**********
The title of this blog-posting may be a bit confusing.
At first glance it might seem to imply that I think the word "genre" is a scary word!
Perhaps I should have put a comma, after "scary."
At any rate, tonight I am thinking about "scary" books.
Halloween is fast approaching. And I want to read a SCARY book in the Halloween season.
So, tonight at Chapters I went up to this one Chapters employee and asked her, "Umm, where is your horror section?"
I know what you're thinking.
Since I practically LIVE at the place, shouldn't I already know where every section of the store is located?
Well, yes!
I DID!
But recently this particular store did a big renovation and moved all their stuff around. As a veteran tenant, at first it was a bit traumatic for me. Like for quite a while I could not find the microwave, and trying to locate my mailbox? Yeah, well, I will save that story for a future blog. Suffice it to say, if I have not responded promptly to some of my fan [snail] mail lately, CHAPTERS is to blame!
I say to the girl, "Where is your HORROR section?"
And wow, I was standing right in front of it. I told her I need a "scary" book for Halloween season.
She pointed to Anne Rice and Stephen King, singling out a King novel called "Cell" as the next thing I should swipe my VISA about!
But see..... the truth is, I don't really want HORROR!
I want -- SCARY!
Totally different thing.
A guy getting chopped up with an unmanned chain saw? That's horror.
But see, I don't want horror, I want..... "scary."
Interesting that there is not a section in the store called "SCARY"....... or "SPOOKY."
I say all of this to just end with a question..... what is a great SCARY book you would recommend?
Not HORROR!
I do not want to read about some guy getting pushed into a wood-chipper.
I want -- SCARY! Like with ghosts and stuff like that.********
Have a great Wednesday!*********
Speaking of John Irving, today is the day his new book hits the racks!
Last Night In Twisted River.
It's officially available in the stores. [At least here in Canada!]
<-- I know this because here it is on the shelf at the Chapters store [I am writing this from the Starbucks within the place] and yesterday it was NOT yet available.
I took this picture about three minutes ago!
[Cippy, do you LIVE at that store?] Yeah, pretty much.
When I'm not at work you can usually find me here, clicking live footage of virtual book porn like this new offering from Mr. Irving.
But this book, oh my God, I guess along with The Year of The Flood, this was my most anticipated novel of 2009! I just love John Irving.
And this new book has such a TERRIFIC first sentence -- The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long.
You just know that the rest of this thing is going to be good!
I watched Irving being interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos [say that with a mouth full of crackers!] last night on The Hour!
FASCINATING interview! I video-ed it, but the quality is so poor I currently refuse to post it here.
So, am I leaving the store today with a fresher-than-fresh new Irving book?
No.
I have a sneaky sneaky suspicion that I am going to be soon receiving a FREE copy, so I'm holding off on dragging one of these beauties to the cashier.
Besides -- at the rate I am currently going [definitely NOT the speed of light] I may still be reading this massive Einstein book on into the Christmas season!********
Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!
-- John Irving --
Have a great Tuesday!
********
Just taking a break here at Starbucks [coming to you LIVE, folks!] as I am absorbing my third pint of coffee... admittedly I'm a bit hyper... I feel like talking about Einstein.
As you know, I'm reading this biography of the man!
Even though from time to time I really get bogged down in the strictly mathematical stuff, nonetheless, I find the character and personality of Albert Einstein to be just endlessly fascinating.
And Walter Isaacson is a terrific writer. I cannot fathom the research that must have gone into the writing of this brick of a book.
Remember the bracelet fad [perhaps it is still a fad, I don't know, I've been out of the Christian loop for a while now] of the WWJD thing?
As in, What Would Jesus Do?
Well, in a whimsical way, I find that when I put the book aside and just live life, often I find myself wondering What Would Einstein Do?
Or maybe more correctly, what would Einstein SAY!
Because so often in the book he comes out with some real good zingers!
What I love about the Einstein I am meeting in these pages is that he was such a non-conformist. He was not a joiner. Let's face it, he was eccentric in many ways. I mean, look at his hair and stuff!
And even when he was wicked famous, he [Gandhi-like] often preferred traveling third-class!
At one real snazzy event where he was to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva [an institution founded by the great Protestant Reformer John Calvin] Einstein turned to a dignitary seated next to him and speculated, "Do you know what Calvin would have done had he been here?" The gentleman replied "No."
Einstein continued, "He would have erected an enormous stake and had us all burnt for our sinful extravagance."
Isaacson tells us that Einstein later recalled, "The man never addressed another word to me."
I like that. I just like his chutzpah!
Another Einstein moment that really cracked me up was when he is again at a very regal ceremony and he is enduring speech after boring speech by all these other people, and he leans to the Dutch diplomat seated next to him and says, "I've just developed a new theory of eternity."
For years and years Einstein The Genius worked at [of all things] a patent office. He was a patent clerk.
And for years before this, he could find no job whatsoever. Just imagine how crazy that is. A genius of this magnitude, forced into working at just a normal old job!
And so all day today as I worked at my very very extremely menial physically-outrageous job, I thought of Einstein.
What Would Einstein Do?
Surely if he worked alongside me, together [us two geniuses] we would be able to come up with some easier way to do things. At the very least, he may be able to invent some way for time itself to go quicker.
Some way for me to have been drinking coffee here at Starbucks a lot sooner.*********
A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.
-- Albert Einstein --Have a great Monday!
I am convinced that we, in our day and age, are involved with too many things.
By "too many things" I am referring to things we would rather NOT be involved with.
Busyness can subtly come along and steal large and significant portions of who we are.
Hey, how many lifetimes are you going to live?
Three?
My cat may have nine of them, but seriously, I'm pretty sure that you and I as human beings only have one. In this sense, perhaps the most appropriately-named soap opera of all time is One Life To Live.
What is the thing you most like doing?
When is the last time you did that thing?
If there is a great gap between the wanting and the doing, why is that gap there?
Is there anything you can do to remove this barrier erected against your greatest desires?
Take some time to consider what size of hammer is required to smash apart that obstacle between you and the reason you're breathing.
Then -- get that hammer. While you can still swing it.
Cheers.
-- Cip******
The Wheelbarrow ThingWe had a thing where one of us would sayYou need a ride in the wheelbarrow right now.It meant we had violated some secret code, oneonly we could decipher, much less pay the finefor. Fine. That's cute. I would rather eat a bulletthan punish her. Oh, but I loved to threaten.The wheelbarrow thing got a lot of mileage!You need a ride in the wheelbarrow right now.One afternoon I actually was pushing the thing.Full to the rim, toward her blessed plantation.Satan himself told me to dump it all into her glovesso she would chase me. So she would chase me.c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009
In honor of Halloween I am reading a scary book, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. So far there have been no witches in the book, but for some reason [maybe it is the combination of having recently read the life of Einstein]... all morning long I’ve had one question rolling around in my head and it simply will not let me alone. It involves witches and gravity. If for no other reason than to exorcise the quandary of it all, I will here elucidate my current thoughts on the matter.
