Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
- William Shakespeare – Sonnet 116
Have a great Wednesday!
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Frankie For Five Minutes.
I am sitting here at Starbucks, at street level, leaning back in my chair, a steaming Americano brew in front of me, my legs stretched out and resting on the sill at perfect ottoman height. I look out at the street and all the passersby… what a diverse and colorful world. The sky above is clear, pristine blue and cut in half horizontally by the overhead walkway that spans Mall to Mall between bustling street. Looking out this window is like watching a gigantic high resolution big-screen T.V… or like suddenly noticing one of those way-too-perfect promotional photos that brag about Fuji color or Kodak moments!
I feel profoundly at ease.
But the real thing that is capturing my attention right now is the girl at the till… the Starbucks girl to the left of me, about twenty feet away. She is bursting in Fuji-color perfection. For the last fifteen minutes or so I’ve been watching her. It is remarkable.
With each and every customer (and there is a perpetual line-up of these) she renews this amazing, genuine smile for them.
“Hi, what can I get for you?” she asks, and she thrusts her head forward over the till, focusing directly on the customer as though they were the only person in the world, and she beams that smile. I’m sitting here looking at her “work it” and I am thinking that it would be impossible for anyone to be more courteous or respectful towards customers.
She is a live-wire, quick and efficient, laughing, smiling, whirling about, whipping energy left and right like a severed power line zapping the air in an effort at re-connection.
The smile transforms her into something positively beautiful. She is already attractive without it, despite her extremely boyish hairstyle. Her hair is a dark black, and straight, short, parted at the side, and near Frankensteinish in profile. No curvature to it, just a sheer right-angle drop from the nether end of that clifflike cranium. I’m even wondering if her hair is just pillow-flattened and she hasn’t fluffed it out yet… which, in itself, says to me that she is not even trying. And I like that. She is not false. Not a showgirl. Genuine.
And she’s pale, even ghost-like, which leads me to speculate that the hair is not an original raven black. But that smile… it lights up everything in her vicinity, including herself.
Starbucks has a barista-style work ethic going on. It makes for better efficiency. Each person is a trained “barista” or skilled coffee stylist… so they alternate between making the lattes and cappuccinos and americanos etc., and working the cash. It’s like a rotation system. It’s like a circus back there and it’s fun to watch. I’ve been watching for years.
Anyways, so this girl… in honor of her hair I’m going to call her Frankie… even when she is not in front of the till but somewhere on the barista 40-yard line… she is still calling out “Can I get something started for anyone in line?” And again, flinging out that gorgeous smile to the entire line-up, brightening up the day not only for them, but also for people twenty feet away… you know… people that are writing a blog-essay about her.
If I were the owner/manager of this establishment and came in here incognito… sat down where I am presently sitting and observed Frankie for five minutes… I would get up, walk over to her behind the counter, and whisper in her ear… “I am giving you a raise of 20%, effective yesterday!”
I feel profoundly at ease.
But the real thing that is capturing my attention right now is the girl at the till… the Starbucks girl to the left of me, about twenty feet away. She is bursting in Fuji-color perfection. For the last fifteen minutes or so I’ve been watching her. It is remarkable.
With each and every customer (and there is a perpetual line-up of these) she renews this amazing, genuine smile for them.
“Hi, what can I get for you?” she asks, and she thrusts her head forward over the till, focusing directly on the customer as though they were the only person in the world, and she beams that smile. I’m sitting here looking at her “work it” and I am thinking that it would be impossible for anyone to be more courteous or respectful towards customers.
She is a live-wire, quick and efficient, laughing, smiling, whirling about, whipping energy left and right like a severed power line zapping the air in an effort at re-connection.
The smile transforms her into something positively beautiful. She is already attractive without it, despite her extremely boyish hairstyle. Her hair is a dark black, and straight, short, parted at the side, and near Frankensteinish in profile. No curvature to it, just a sheer right-angle drop from the nether end of that clifflike cranium. I’m even wondering if her hair is just pillow-flattened and she hasn’t fluffed it out yet… which, in itself, says to me that she is not even trying. And I like that. She is not false. Not a showgirl. Genuine.
And she’s pale, even ghost-like, which leads me to speculate that the hair is not an original raven black. But that smile… it lights up everything in her vicinity, including herself.
Starbucks has a barista-style work ethic going on. It makes for better efficiency. Each person is a trained “barista” or skilled coffee stylist… so they alternate between making the lattes and cappuccinos and americanos etc., and working the cash. It’s like a rotation system. It’s like a circus back there and it’s fun to watch. I’ve been watching for years.
Anyways, so this girl… in honor of her hair I’m going to call her Frankie… even when she is not in front of the till but somewhere on the barista 40-yard line… she is still calling out “Can I get something started for anyone in line?” And again, flinging out that gorgeous smile to the entire line-up, brightening up the day not only for them, but also for people twenty feet away… you know… people that are writing a blog-essay about her.
If I were the owner/manager of this establishment and came in here incognito… sat down where I am presently sitting and observed Frankie for five minutes… I would get up, walk over to her behind the counter, and whisper in her ear… “I am giving you a raise of 20%, effective yesterday!”
Splash du Jour: Tuesday
Muse upon this, from from one of the greatest short story writers of all time.
“The serious fiction writer will think that any story that can be entirely explained by the adequate motivation of the characters or by a believable imitation of a way of life or by a proper theology, will not be a large enough story for him to occupy himself with. This is not to say that he doesn’t have to be concerned with adequate motivation or accurate reference or a right theology; he does; but he has to be concerned with them only because the meaning of his story does not begin except at a depth where these things have been exhausted. The fiction writer presents mystery through manners, grace through nature, but when he finishes, there always has to be left over that sense of Mystery which cannot be accounted for by any human formula.”
- Flannery O’Connor –
Have a great Tuesday!
“The serious fiction writer will think that any story that can be entirely explained by the adequate motivation of the characters or by a believable imitation of a way of life or by a proper theology, will not be a large enough story for him to occupy himself with. This is not to say that he doesn’t have to be concerned with adequate motivation or accurate reference or a right theology; he does; but he has to be concerned with them only because the meaning of his story does not begin except at a depth where these things have been exhausted. The fiction writer presents mystery through manners, grace through nature, but when he finishes, there always has to be left over that sense of Mystery which cannot be accounted for by any human formula.”
- Flannery O’Connor –
Have a great Tuesday!
Monday, May 09, 2005
Oh, Mr. Davies.
Without a doubt, one of my favorite authors of all time is the late great, irreplaceable Canadian literary behemoth, Robertson Davies. Seriously, who is like unto him?
Ribald. Saucy. Sassy. Ever-dripping with drollery. Arcane. Donning broad-brimmed hats, tooth-bitten spectacles, formal suit, pocket watch and fob chain, large dark rings, Gandalf-ish white beard.... ahh Rob! His work is MARVELOUS! I think of him as Canada’s Charles Dickens. But, on steroids! Then again... Huxley, without the hallucinogens. No, he is incomparable. He is himself.
Davies passed away in 1995.
I have read all but two of his eleven “major” novels, and I look forward to reading these, and then re-reading the works. [My favorite thus far is World Of Wonders]. Truly, he was a literary genius.
Witty. Racy. Brazen. On the edge. The wealth of incidental knowledge in every one of his novels.... legerdemain, Jungian psychology, medicine, hagiography, the afterlife... Davies used brilliant fiction to bring the esoteric into accessible terms for the common human.
He is remarkable. A wayward SNOWBALL charts the course of three full novels in his Deptford Trilogy.
Anyhoo, today’s Splash du Jour just got me to thinking of Davies all day.
I recall an incident recorded in his Letters (from the book For Your Eye Alone: Letters 1976 – 1995, selected and edited by Judith Skelton Grant).
This is sooooo classic Davies-ness! I love it.
Seems that back in 1981, a certain “Woman in Manitoba” wrote to Davies after reading an excerpt from his novel The Rebel Angels. She was apparently scandalized by the book and wrote to reprove Davies for presenting what she called “Barn Yard pornography,” which “stinks of syphilis” and is written “in terms of degradation, lies, sacrilegious slander and filth.”
I must credit Grant’s book here, for I am quoting directly from it, below. Rob's reply is simply wonderful:
[Dear Miss _______:]
Many many heartfelt thanks for your letter of September 25. Though it filled me with shame and remorse, I was grateful for the Christian impulse which moved you to stretch out a hand to me in my wretchedness. You say “We become that with which we busy our mind.” Too true! Alas, too true! I recall that as a boy the school chaplain said to my class, “If you tell dirty jokes you will grow to look like a dirty joke!” This has been my hapless destiny..... Would you do me a favour? Will you please send me a photograph of yourself, so that I may behold a countenance suffused with Christian love, and perhaps even yet repent?
[Robertson Davies.]
[End quote.]
Oh, Mr. Davies. The world is a lesser place since you have left us to ourselves.
Ribald. Saucy. Sassy. Ever-dripping with drollery. Arcane. Donning broad-brimmed hats, tooth-bitten spectacles, formal suit, pocket watch and fob chain, large dark rings, Gandalf-ish white beard.... ahh Rob! His work is MARVELOUS! I think of him as Canada’s Charles Dickens. But, on steroids! Then again... Huxley, without the hallucinogens. No, he is incomparable. He is himself.
Davies passed away in 1995.
I have read all but two of his eleven “major” novels, and I look forward to reading these, and then re-reading the works. [My favorite thus far is World Of Wonders]. Truly, he was a literary genius.
Witty. Racy. Brazen. On the edge. The wealth of incidental knowledge in every one of his novels.... legerdemain, Jungian psychology, medicine, hagiography, the afterlife... Davies used brilliant fiction to bring the esoteric into accessible terms for the common human.
He is remarkable. A wayward SNOWBALL charts the course of three full novels in his Deptford Trilogy.
Anyhoo, today’s Splash du Jour just got me to thinking of Davies all day.
I recall an incident recorded in his Letters (from the book For Your Eye Alone: Letters 1976 – 1995, selected and edited by Judith Skelton Grant).
This is sooooo classic Davies-ness! I love it.
Seems that back in 1981, a certain “Woman in Manitoba” wrote to Davies after reading an excerpt from his novel The Rebel Angels. She was apparently scandalized by the book and wrote to reprove Davies for presenting what she called “Barn Yard pornography,” which “stinks of syphilis” and is written “in terms of degradation, lies, sacrilegious slander and filth.”
I must credit Grant’s book here, for I am quoting directly from it, below. Rob's reply is simply wonderful:
[Dear Miss _______:]
Many many heartfelt thanks for your letter of September 25. Though it filled me with shame and remorse, I was grateful for the Christian impulse which moved you to stretch out a hand to me in my wretchedness. You say “We become that with which we busy our mind.” Too true! Alas, too true! I recall that as a boy the school chaplain said to my class, “If you tell dirty jokes you will grow to look like a dirty joke!” This has been my hapless destiny..... Would you do me a favour? Will you please send me a photograph of yourself, so that I may behold a countenance suffused with Christian love, and perhaps even yet repent?
[Robertson Davies.]
[End quote.]
Oh, Mr. Davies. The world is a lesser place since you have left us to ourselves.
Splash du Jour: Monday
“I don’t speak against education; for most people it is a necessity; but if you’re going to be a genius you should try either to avoid education entirely, or else work hard to get rid of any you’ve been given.”
Robertson Davies
Have a great Monday!
Robertson Davies
Have a great Monday!
Sunday, May 08, 2005
24 & 49.
I came so close to being a mega-millionnaire that it isn’t even funny.
For this reason [that it isn’t even funny] I forbid any snickering and/or laughter during the serious telling of the following vignette....
Picture this.
After an incredibly arduous day at work I stop off at the local supermarket to pick up a few chicken legs and maybe a potato or two, along with some sort of carcinogenic microwaveable item that I will take to work with me for tomorrow’s lunch.
After going through the checkout, I am making my way out of the store when I pass the Lottery booth and I recall that I have an unchecked ticket from the recent draw. Some people play the Lottery for fun. For me, however, that weekly ticket tucked into my wallet is something I think of quite seriously as being “My Retirement Plan.”
So, imagine my horror at the following sequence of events.
I set down the meagre bag of peasant victuals and root around for the ticket.... ahh, there it is. I hold it up against the display which shows the winning numbers, which happen to be:
12 – 14 – 16 – 23 – 24 – 45.
I’m not good with math and/or numbers in general at the best of times... things algebraic are just not my forte, but it’s amazing how rapidly I developed the numerical exactitude of a nuclear physicist as my eyes kept darting from this display to the ticket in my shaking hand... my ticket which held the numbers:
12 – 14 – 16 – 23 – 45 – 49.
For those of you keeping score, this means that I am ONE NUMBER off from winning $10,000,000. Ten million dollars.
A thousand dollars.... ten thousand times.
A million dollars, not once.... but hell.... TEN times, and all at once.
Be still my peasant heart!
I turn to the girl behind the till.... “What does this mean? I must have won something.... does this look right to you?”
I hand her the ticket and she inserts it into this machine and while these garbled sounds come out of it I am praying fervently to all manner of quickly imagined monetary deities.... I called upon Freedomethius... QuitWorkius... Trumpalopimus... all of them, and then she handed me back the ticket.
“You win $2,038.30 sir.”
Ooooooh.... ow owww! Ye gods are cruel and unkind unto me!
NOT quite enough to retire on! Nope. It will be back to work for me in the morning, with my Stouffer’s microwaveable thing here.....
When I bought that ticket, I shaded off the numbers in the squares myself. It was not one of those computer generated tickets. If I had just shaded in the number 24 instead of so stupidly STUPIDLY shading in that number 49, I would have won ten mil....
...It is probably time for me to quit turning this over in my mind. Thanks for listening though. It was very cathartic for me to just once more get this out in the open, and thereby, bury it for good.
Suffice it to say, tomorrow morning, you can be 100% sure of where I will be.
I will be driving to work, WAY too early, and then, at about 1:15, I’ll be hearing that familiar “beep-beep-beep” which is Panasonic’s way of reminding me “Dinner is now served, Mr. Lottery Loser!”
Da Vinci Code Da SHMINCI Code! I still want to crack the Lottery Code!
For this reason [that it isn’t even funny] I forbid any snickering and/or laughter during the serious telling of the following vignette....
Picture this.
After an incredibly arduous day at work I stop off at the local supermarket to pick up a few chicken legs and maybe a potato or two, along with some sort of carcinogenic microwaveable item that I will take to work with me for tomorrow’s lunch.
After going through the checkout, I am making my way out of the store when I pass the Lottery booth and I recall that I have an unchecked ticket from the recent draw. Some people play the Lottery for fun. For me, however, that weekly ticket tucked into my wallet is something I think of quite seriously as being “My Retirement Plan.”
So, imagine my horror at the following sequence of events.
I set down the meagre bag of peasant victuals and root around for the ticket.... ahh, there it is. I hold it up against the display which shows the winning numbers, which happen to be:
12 – 14 – 16 – 23 – 24 – 45.
I’m not good with math and/or numbers in general at the best of times... things algebraic are just not my forte, but it’s amazing how rapidly I developed the numerical exactitude of a nuclear physicist as my eyes kept darting from this display to the ticket in my shaking hand... my ticket which held the numbers:
12 – 14 – 16 – 23 – 45 – 49.
For those of you keeping score, this means that I am ONE NUMBER off from winning $10,000,000. Ten million dollars.
A thousand dollars.... ten thousand times.
A million dollars, not once.... but hell.... TEN times, and all at once.
Be still my peasant heart!
I turn to the girl behind the till.... “What does this mean? I must have won something.... does this look right to you?”
I hand her the ticket and she inserts it into this machine and while these garbled sounds come out of it I am praying fervently to all manner of quickly imagined monetary deities.... I called upon Freedomethius... QuitWorkius... Trumpalopimus... all of them, and then she handed me back the ticket.
“You win $2,038.30 sir.”
Ooooooh.... ow owww! Ye gods are cruel and unkind unto me!
NOT quite enough to retire on! Nope. It will be back to work for me in the morning, with my Stouffer’s microwaveable thing here.....
When I bought that ticket, I shaded off the numbers in the squares myself. It was not one of those computer generated tickets. If I had just shaded in the number 24 instead of so stupidly STUPIDLY shading in that number 49, I would have won ten mil....
...It is probably time for me to quit turning this over in my mind. Thanks for listening though. It was very cathartic for me to just once more get this out in the open, and thereby, bury it for good.
Suffice it to say, tomorrow morning, you can be 100% sure of where I will be.
I will be driving to work, WAY too early, and then, at about 1:15, I’ll be hearing that familiar “beep-beep-beep” which is Panasonic’s way of reminding me “Dinner is now served, Mr. Lottery Loser!”
Da Vinci Code Da SHMINCI Code! I still want to crack the Lottery Code!
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Do Not Try This At Home Kids....
I once went temporarily blind... and NO... not as a result of what you are immediately thinking!
And by the way... that is just one of those urban myths anyway.... [isn’t it?]
Anyhoo, it all happened on a beach, with the Pacific Ocean in front of me and a park full of people behind me.
I was all alone, reading a biography of Raoul Wallenberg and working on my tan.
[Note: Back then I could lie around with my shirt off and not be mistaken for a beached whale... today however, were I to do the same.... yes, Greenpeace would definitely be notified!]
At one point in this arduous day on the beach I decided that it was time for a new layer of sunscreen, so I put the book down and smeared this stuff all over me, even on my face, forehead, all over, basically.
Then I leaned back against this huge log, sort of like a pillow in the sand, and with my face directly pointed at the volcanic ragings of a July sun in all its wondrous fury.... I fell asleep.
[Do you at all see where I am going with this?]
I’m not sure how much time had elapsed [it may have been a few days] but when I finally woke up and opened my eyes.... I was blind.
And not only was I blind, but the pain was like nothing I have ever experienced before or since. Excruciating. Sort of radiating inwards from the back of my eyeballs. My brain was on fire. I literally panicked.
Mostly because I love to read so much, I have always had a profound fear of going blind. I fear even my eyesight diminishing in any noticeable way. [I have never had to wear glasses, and have very good vision.... except during the time period of this story I am telling...]
So I panicked because I was blind and in pain. However, when I closed my eyes, the pain vanished. What had happened during the time I had fallen asleep was that all of that molten suntan lotion had seeped its way into my eyeballs, right to the back of them.... surely into the folds of my cerebral cortex. No joke. It was terrible. My brain was being eaten.
And I was alone and a long way from my car, and a long way from the public washroom that I knew was in that park behind me. Somehow I had to get there, stumbling around with my eyes shut. I got up from the sand, tripped over the log, and tried to grope my way like Frankenstein, with one thought in mind really...... “Need water in eyes!”
I finally found the washroom, felt the outer concrete walls of it. I wanted to avoid walking into the women’s washroom. That is all I need now.... to be not only blind and in pain, but to have shrieking broads whipping me with their towels while my hands are extended towards them in misunderstood anguish!
So, leaning on the building I squinted my eyes open a crack, discerned some sort of human shape in front of me and tried to explain to it the situation in as non-threatening and yet sincere a way as possible. This human then led me to the men’s side of the building and I went in there, feeling my way along the walls.
When I found the sinks, I shoved my head right in one and turned the water on. Even then I could not open my eyes. Tilted sideways with the water rushing over my face, eventually it began to wash out the poison. Soon I could half-open my eyes and I continued flushing them out until the pain also subsided.
Then I looked in the mirror.
Sweet Lord!
What once was the white part of my eyes was now what Crayola would call “Busted Scarlet.”
It was a shaky, squinty walk back to the log to retrieve my book and fling what remained of the suntan lotion into the sea. But I say all of this just to warn all of you suntan lotion users out there! To offer my own disclaimer, just as Joe Rogan says at the beginning of every episode of Fear Factor.... “These stunts were designed by professionals, and should not be attempted by anyone, anywhere, anytime!”
And by the way... that is just one of those urban myths anyway.... [isn’t it?]
Anyhoo, it all happened on a beach, with the Pacific Ocean in front of me and a park full of people behind me.
I was all alone, reading a biography of Raoul Wallenberg and working on my tan.
[Note: Back then I could lie around with my shirt off and not be mistaken for a beached whale... today however, were I to do the same.... yes, Greenpeace would definitely be notified!]
At one point in this arduous day on the beach I decided that it was time for a new layer of sunscreen, so I put the book down and smeared this stuff all over me, even on my face, forehead, all over, basically.
Then I leaned back against this huge log, sort of like a pillow in the sand, and with my face directly pointed at the volcanic ragings of a July sun in all its wondrous fury.... I fell asleep.
[Do you at all see where I am going with this?]
I’m not sure how much time had elapsed [it may have been a few days] but when I finally woke up and opened my eyes.... I was blind.
And not only was I blind, but the pain was like nothing I have ever experienced before or since. Excruciating. Sort of radiating inwards from the back of my eyeballs. My brain was on fire. I literally panicked.
Mostly because I love to read so much, I have always had a profound fear of going blind. I fear even my eyesight diminishing in any noticeable way. [I have never had to wear glasses, and have very good vision.... except during the time period of this story I am telling...]
So I panicked because I was blind and in pain. However, when I closed my eyes, the pain vanished. What had happened during the time I had fallen asleep was that all of that molten suntan lotion had seeped its way into my eyeballs, right to the back of them.... surely into the folds of my cerebral cortex. No joke. It was terrible. My brain was being eaten.
And I was alone and a long way from my car, and a long way from the public washroom that I knew was in that park behind me. Somehow I had to get there, stumbling around with my eyes shut. I got up from the sand, tripped over the log, and tried to grope my way like Frankenstein, with one thought in mind really...... “Need water in eyes!”
I finally found the washroom, felt the outer concrete walls of it. I wanted to avoid walking into the women’s washroom. That is all I need now.... to be not only blind and in pain, but to have shrieking broads whipping me with their towels while my hands are extended towards them in misunderstood anguish!
So, leaning on the building I squinted my eyes open a crack, discerned some sort of human shape in front of me and tried to explain to it the situation in as non-threatening and yet sincere a way as possible. This human then led me to the men’s side of the building and I went in there, feeling my way along the walls.
When I found the sinks, I shoved my head right in one and turned the water on. Even then I could not open my eyes. Tilted sideways with the water rushing over my face, eventually it began to wash out the poison. Soon I could half-open my eyes and I continued flushing them out until the pain also subsided.
Then I looked in the mirror.
Sweet Lord!
What once was the white part of my eyes was now what Crayola would call “Busted Scarlet.”
It was a shaky, squinty walk back to the log to retrieve my book and fling what remained of the suntan lotion into the sea. But I say all of this just to warn all of you suntan lotion users out there! To offer my own disclaimer, just as Joe Rogan says at the beginning of every episode of Fear Factor.... “These stunts were designed by professionals, and should not be attempted by anyone, anywhere, anytime!”
Friday, May 06, 2005
All we like sheep...
I’ve been sitting here in the upper level of the mega-bookstore coffeeshop for about two hours. For some managerial reason, after 6 p.m. they rope off the stairway that leads to the lower level. At the bottom, it is also roped off to prevent anyone’s ascension. In other words, after 6 p.m. the stairway is off limits. One must use the distant escalator or nearby elevator instead.
The whole time I’ve been sitting here high on caffeine I’ve been watching an amusing phenomenon. Sometime before my arrival someone moved the little pillar supporting the velvet rope that blocks the descent. There it stands, about one and a half feet askew of where it should be. Needless to say, this allows for people to flit through sideways and go galloping down like the heedless sheep that they are.
I’ve now watched at least three dozen people go halfway down the stairway, turn at the landing, notice the barricade at the bottom, heave a sigh, and haul their weary asses all the way up again to merge with the herd in some other direction.
But here’s the interesting thing. Not once has anyone moved that pillar back the eighteen inches that would surely stop the gap, stem the tide… STOP THE INSANITY! Apparently, not one thought going out toward the bleating masses in tow.
And me? Well, I’m enjoying this far too much to get up and go fix the problem myself.
Oh… there goes another one… clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp… “Ba-a-ah! Ba-a-ah!”
The whole time I’ve been sitting here high on caffeine I’ve been watching an amusing phenomenon. Sometime before my arrival someone moved the little pillar supporting the velvet rope that blocks the descent. There it stands, about one and a half feet askew of where it should be. Needless to say, this allows for people to flit through sideways and go galloping down like the heedless sheep that they are.
I’ve now watched at least three dozen people go halfway down the stairway, turn at the landing, notice the barricade at the bottom, heave a sigh, and haul their weary asses all the way up again to merge with the herd in some other direction.
But here’s the interesting thing. Not once has anyone moved that pillar back the eighteen inches that would surely stop the gap, stem the tide… STOP THE INSANITY! Apparently, not one thought going out toward the bleating masses in tow.
And me? Well, I’m enjoying this far too much to get up and go fix the problem myself.
Oh… there goes another one… clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp… “Ba-a-ah! Ba-a-ah!”
Splash du Jour: Friday
If it takes my whole life I won’t break I won’t bend
It’ll all be worth it worth it in the end
‘Cause I can only tell you what I know
that I need you in my life.
When the stars have all gone out
You’ll still be burning so bright.
It’ll all be worth it worth it in the end
‘Cause I can only tell you what I know
that I need you in my life.
When the stars have all gone out
You’ll still be burning so bright.
- lyrics from Sarah McLachlan’s song entitled Answer –
Is there someone in your life who should hear these words, in your own words?
Today. Tonight. This weekend. Consider saying them.
Have a terrific Friday.
Is there someone in your life who should hear these words, in your own words?
Today. Tonight. This weekend. Consider saying them.
Have a terrific Friday.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
It Comes From Within.
Just a few words on the topic of “art.”
While I was at the mega-bookstore drinking my second Grande Americano, they announced over the P.A. that the painter Robert Bateman would be doing a book-signing a few minutes hence. So I set aside Bulgakov’s The Master And Margarita and sauntered on over to the fireplace area, where at least fifty people were already gathered.
Robert Bateman is an internationally known artist who specializes in near-lifelike nature paintings. Think Audobon, but quite a bit better! I own a Bateman print of a gorgeous lynx surrounded by icicles and winter. It’s absolutely beautiful stuff. So lifelike you’d swear it was breathing. The lynx is crouching in the snow and his eyes are half closed. This painting is over my bed, and sometimes when I’m not quite tired enough to go to sleep, I just look at the thing… and it does the trick.
It is so effective that there are times I will fall right on the floor even. Lights out!
Now that’s a painting!
Mr. Bateman began with a little lecture [he finds dead birds and then freezes them stretched out in different positions so that he can study them, their feather structure etc.]
Artists are such psychos! I love it.
And then he had a question period. One woman asked him if he would ever be writing a book on the technique of painting. His answer really blew me away…
Bateman said “I don’t know anything about technique.” Then, amid the sound of about fifty-one people chuckling over that, he backed up and explained how he uses certain paints etc. etc., but he concluded by saying that he’s never been one to advocate “courses” in painting. He said, “if it’s not in here [tapping on his chest] it won’t be on the canvas.”
While I was at the mega-bookstore drinking my second Grande Americano, they announced over the P.A. that the painter Robert Bateman would be doing a book-signing a few minutes hence. So I set aside Bulgakov’s The Master And Margarita and sauntered on over to the fireplace area, where at least fifty people were already gathered.
Robert Bateman is an internationally known artist who specializes in near-lifelike nature paintings. Think Audobon, but quite a bit better! I own a Bateman print of a gorgeous lynx surrounded by icicles and winter. It’s absolutely beautiful stuff. So lifelike you’d swear it was breathing. The lynx is crouching in the snow and his eyes are half closed. This painting is over my bed, and sometimes when I’m not quite tired enough to go to sleep, I just look at the thing… and it does the trick.
It is so effective that there are times I will fall right on the floor even. Lights out!
Now that’s a painting!
Mr. Bateman began with a little lecture [he finds dead birds and then freezes them stretched out in different positions so that he can study them, their feather structure etc.]
Artists are such psychos! I love it.
And then he had a question period. One woman asked him if he would ever be writing a book on the technique of painting. His answer really blew me away…
Bateman said “I don’t know anything about technique.” Then, amid the sound of about fifty-one people chuckling over that, he backed up and explained how he uses certain paints etc. etc., but he concluded by saying that he’s never been one to advocate “courses” in painting. He said, “if it’s not in here [tapping on his chest] it won’t be on the canvas.”
Splash du Jour: Thursday
Never mind the legendary molten brimstone accompanied with pitchforks up your butt!
Those things do sound quite uncomfortable, yes... but here below is the most somber definition of hell I have ever encountered in literature. Dostoyevsky’s Father Zossima concludes that hell is:
“the suffering that comes from the consciousness that one is no longer able to love.”
- from The Brothers Karamazov, Book VI, chapter 3 –
Have a great Thursday!
Those things do sound quite uncomfortable, yes... but here below is the most somber definition of hell I have ever encountered in literature. Dostoyevsky’s Father Zossima concludes that hell is:
“the suffering that comes from the consciousness that one is no longer able to love.”
- from The Brothers Karamazov, Book VI, chapter 3 –
Have a great Thursday!
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Splash du Jour: Wednesday
I love what one of my favorite authors of all time had to say on the topic of gambling:
“Gambling ought never to be an important part of a man's life. If it is a way in which large sums of money are transferred from person to person without doing any good (ie., producing employment, goodwill, etc.) then it's a bad thing. If it is carried out on a small scale, I am not sure that it is bad. I don't know much about it, because it is about the only vice to which I have no temptation at all, and I think it is a risk to talk about things which are not in my own make-up, because I don't understand them. If anyone comes to me asking to play bridge for money, I just say: 'How much do you hope to win? Take it and go away.' ”
- C.S. Lewis (1944) –
Have a great Wednesday.
“Gambling ought never to be an important part of a man's life. If it is a way in which large sums of money are transferred from person to person without doing any good (ie., producing employment, goodwill, etc.) then it's a bad thing. If it is carried out on a small scale, I am not sure that it is bad. I don't know much about it, because it is about the only vice to which I have no temptation at all, and I think it is a risk to talk about things which are not in my own make-up, because I don't understand them. If anyone comes to me asking to play bridge for money, I just say: 'How much do you hope to win? Take it and go away.' ”
- C.S. Lewis (1944) –
Have a great Wednesday.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
"Accident."
I was in the presence of tragedy today, at lunchtime.
I’m driving back to the building I work at when all of a sudden the entire road is sort of blocked off in front of me by a snarl of TV trucks and vans and SUV’s with NewsStation logos on them, and cameras everywhere, pointed towards the big huge cement plant that is about a city block distant, beyond the iron-gated entrance. I got real curious. I could see firetrucks in there, an ambulance, lots of vehicles with flashing lights of all kinds.
So I pulled over, got out, and walked up to this one cameraman who seemed glued to his tripod, and I asked him what was going on. His face would not leave the eyepiece of his camera, but the side of his mouth muttered “Accident.”
Following the angle of the camera I can see that a large crane is supporting a rescue crew on a platform and they are at least 150 feet up, swinging about up there against this huge conveyor belt sort of apparatus that comes out of a huge silo-type of building. Other guys are on top of the building, helping in some way.
So I ask the cameraman... “You mean there is someone trapped in that conveyor belt?”
For the first time he looks away from his camera for two seconds and says to me, “He’s dead.”
He looks back into his eyepiece, fiddles with the lens a bit, and adds “We’re just waiting for the body to come out of there.”
I didn’t say another word to the guy, nor he to me. And I just went back to my car. But as I drove away I turned down my 3 Doors Down CD and just thought about the way the camera dude said that. For the rest of the drive back to work, I re-played that:
“We’re just waiting for the body to come out of there.”
Of course, when it does “come out” he will then snap all manner of zoomed-up shots of whatever mangledness that conveyor belt yields, and then these images will be in turn conveyed to all kinds of people that could not be there to see it in person. And there were many many other lenses pointed that way, from different angles, each truck and van having a different logo on it, a different company. A different slant.
Why is it that we are so fascinated with this kind of tragedy? Like who would really want to see that poor dead guy’s torn up body?
I know I wouldn’t.
And yet, why did I stop my car in the first place to ask about something that I KNEW could not possibly be good? Something that was, in fact, exactly as it turned out to be.... tragic.
Why?
And this morning, the last thing I saw before flicking the TV off and booting it for work was this boat of refugee-type people tipping sideways into the ocean. About a hundred of them spilling out into the water. They were then promptly rescued by U.S. Navy, who were also filming the disaster.
I had just been listening to it sort of peripherally, but at a certain point, the newscaster said “We warn you, some of these images may be disturbing and graphic.” And that is when I turned and gave the screen my full attention. The disturbing part was that they showed a child floating face down on the ocean.
This is what good news is though. It is tragic.
Why?
I’m driving back to the building I work at when all of a sudden the entire road is sort of blocked off in front of me by a snarl of TV trucks and vans and SUV’s with NewsStation logos on them, and cameras everywhere, pointed towards the big huge cement plant that is about a city block distant, beyond the iron-gated entrance. I got real curious. I could see firetrucks in there, an ambulance, lots of vehicles with flashing lights of all kinds.
So I pulled over, got out, and walked up to this one cameraman who seemed glued to his tripod, and I asked him what was going on. His face would not leave the eyepiece of his camera, but the side of his mouth muttered “Accident.”
Following the angle of the camera I can see that a large crane is supporting a rescue crew on a platform and they are at least 150 feet up, swinging about up there against this huge conveyor belt sort of apparatus that comes out of a huge silo-type of building. Other guys are on top of the building, helping in some way.
So I ask the cameraman... “You mean there is someone trapped in that conveyor belt?”
For the first time he looks away from his camera for two seconds and says to me, “He’s dead.”
He looks back into his eyepiece, fiddles with the lens a bit, and adds “We’re just waiting for the body to come out of there.”
I didn’t say another word to the guy, nor he to me. And I just went back to my car. But as I drove away I turned down my 3 Doors Down CD and just thought about the way the camera dude said that. For the rest of the drive back to work, I re-played that:
“We’re just waiting for the body to come out of there.”
Of course, when it does “come out” he will then snap all manner of zoomed-up shots of whatever mangledness that conveyor belt yields, and then these images will be in turn conveyed to all kinds of people that could not be there to see it in person. And there were many many other lenses pointed that way, from different angles, each truck and van having a different logo on it, a different company. A different slant.
Why is it that we are so fascinated with this kind of tragedy? Like who would really want to see that poor dead guy’s torn up body?
I know I wouldn’t.
And yet, why did I stop my car in the first place to ask about something that I KNEW could not possibly be good? Something that was, in fact, exactly as it turned out to be.... tragic.
Why?
And this morning, the last thing I saw before flicking the TV off and booting it for work was this boat of refugee-type people tipping sideways into the ocean. About a hundred of them spilling out into the water. They were then promptly rescued by U.S. Navy, who were also filming the disaster.
I had just been listening to it sort of peripherally, but at a certain point, the newscaster said “We warn you, some of these images may be disturbing and graphic.” And that is when I turned and gave the screen my full attention. The disturbing part was that they showed a child floating face down on the ocean.
This is what good news is though. It is tragic.
Why?
Splash du Jour: Tuesday
Here is something to ponder this morning and beyond.
“Art neither constrains nor restrains us, for it knows that the best things in life are those which we willingly return to, time and again. And such a thing, it trusts that it is.”
This is an original, from the thoughts of yours truly.
Cipriano
Have a great Tuesday.
“Art neither constrains nor restrains us, for it knows that the best things in life are those which we willingly return to, time and again. And such a thing, it trusts that it is.”
This is an original, from the thoughts of yours truly.
Cipriano
Have a great Tuesday.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Sebald's Austerlitz, and Goats.
W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz is one of the best books I have ever read.It tells the story of a man who goes in quest of his beginnings. In search of some clues as to the identity of his birth parents. I loved the story, on many levels. But I do think that much of my fascination with it comes down to the emphasis in the book on the relationship between the realms of being dead and alive… I mean, this Austerlitz guy thinks a lot along the same lines as I do on this issue of the dead not being really dead (as in, annihilated). I have always felt that we will never be more alive, than when we are dead.
As he says, "When space becomes too cramped, the dead, like the living, move out into less densely populated districts where they can rest at a decent distance from each other."
Ah… there is a ton of this kind of stuff in the novel. And I won’t go on about it, because it’s so spooky and weird, and really, I am highly recommending here that you read the novel yourself.
It is a book about time, and more specifically, about continuity. The irretrievable aspect of the past.
Disjunction.
Being "cut off from the past and the future" (p.101) we have only the present.
But, if we have only the present, we are disconnected. Austerlitz (the character) says he feels that no matter what he talks about, it arouses in him "a sense of disjunction" (p.109). His sense of time is so other-worldly that he doesn’t even bother to own a clock! For Austerlitz, the past is not "fixed." He says, "Past events have not yet occurred but are waiting to do so at the moment when we think of them."
This is why when he pictures the possible re-appearance of his parents, they are not at their actual current chronological age, but at a sort-of perfect optimal age ("mid-thirties at the most") p.185. There are laws governing the return of the past (recollection) but "we don’t understand them."
I love ruminating upon the kind of things that Sebald loved writing about. [Sadly, Sebald died in a car accident on Dec.14, 2001].
I feasted on Austerlitz!
For those of you who have looked at his books, you will know that Sebald uses black and white photographs as reference points in his work. It is fabulous. Pictures that always have just enough mystery locked into them that you find yourself staring and not knowing why you continue to do so. They contain just enough nuance to not really answer anything, and yet they add to the storyline and aid in the overall emotive quality... you feel the pictures.
I met a really nice girl as a result of reading Austerlitz in a public place!
It was because of one of these pictures.
I'm sitting there at a mega-bookstore (you know what I mean.... the type of place where you can get the best coffee ever, sit and read your book, AND get the oil changed in your car all at the same time???)... anyhoo, I'm sitting there reading Austerlitz when I come across a passage en francais and my various conjugations of "ouvrez la porte" and "fermez le fenetre" and “splash du jour” are just not helping me at all....
Over to my right, at the same long table in which I'm sitting, there is a girl studying anesthesiology. Books splayed all over the table. Right away, I realize she is more intelligent than I... so I ask her, "Do you read French?"
She does.
I ask "Can you tell me what this is saying?" and I show her the passage on page 264, which says "a travers une breche d'incomprehension."
She is stumped by this word "breche."
I am stumped by the entire sentence.
On the same page is a picture of a herd of deer imprisoned behind an enclosure...they are in a zoo! And they are looking outward toward the photographer through the wire-mesh fence.
The girl gets up from the table and runs off to the French/English Dictionary section of the store and she returns and tells me...
"In the context of what is being said here, the author is suggesting that the caged animals in the zoo look at us as though we too are imprisoned or unable to be free, and they find this hard to comprehend."
I thanked her and went on with Austerlitz. She went on with her anesthesiology book.
But the thought of those imprisoned deer continued to impress itself upon me. As Sebald intended (I’m sure)... I kept staring at the photograph.
I wondered what my cat thinks when I go to work.
Seriously though. Every morning, coffee in hand, I step across the threshold and shut the door and lock it.
My cat probably thinks I spend all day out there in the hallway! Absolutely no comprehension of an entire world outside of this apartment where he and I live.
In his case, I think he is quite content in his cute-as-hell ignorance. But when it comes to wild animals, no. I do not think they should be penned up. I mean, zoos are fun and all, (for us visitors) and I suppose they are educationally necessary, but generally, I think it is quite mean to put the genuine beasts behind bars.
I once met a wild mountain goat.
It was the earliest morning of my life, an Easter morning. Easter Sunday.
So I am driving along this windy mountain edge, you know what I mean? In the Rockies. The sort of place where if you drove off the edge some hiker would find you down there about sixteen years later. And by then you would have ferns growing out of your eye sockets type thing. Yeah. So, as I drive around this bend, there is all of a sudden this bunch of wild mountain goats sort of browsing along the road, on the mountain side of the road.... and I nearly died for the beauty of it. So I stopped, and most of them sort of clambered away. But this one just looked at me with his slanty eyes and walked up to my car.
He looked for all the world like he was going to ask me for my driver’s license and registration. My window was already down of course, and here this beast was so close I could have touched him. I wished that I had some food for him but I had nothing but a coffee and a muffin wrapper. He just stared at me like I too was part of the scenery. Soon I realized I had to move on... plus I am like right on the highway in a car and not moving (there was like zero traffic).... so I started to drive real slow like, and Mr. Goat here just began to trot alongside me. Right on the highway. It was funny as hell. I will never forget it as long as I live, the little puffs of goatsteam coming out of his mouth as he kept pace with my Oldsmobile.
It was like we were lovers and she [she, all of a sudden he is a she, did you catch that? As though its actual gonadular apparatus changed in response to my fantasy thoughts, is that narcissistic of me or what?] is running alongside the bus as I am being taken off to war..... [I get so romantic about these things] like as though she was saying "Write me... (puff) I love you (puff) I will... (puff)... miss you" as the bus speeds away and her nails scratch all the way down the side of it.... when in REALITY.... here is probably what is closer to the musical truth... here are the real goat-thoughts.....
"Just a... (puff)... crust of a (puff) sandwich or muffin (puff)... even Doritos....(puff, puff) any (puff) Doritos in there? I (puff puff) love Doritos."
And even if this goat was not in ACTUAL love with me it was still a holy moment I will never forget.
The moral of this story is twofold.
# 1) Read Sebald’s Austerlitz.
# 2) When driving through the Rocky Mountains, keep a bag of goat-chow nearby.
**************
Splash du Jour: Monday
On the tongue-loosening properties of alcohol, F. Scott Fitzgerald's character Dick Diver warns us:
Tell a secret over the radio, publish it in a tabloid, but never tell it to a man who drinks more than three or four a day.
- from Tender Is The Night
Have a great Monday!
Tell a secret over the radio, publish it in a tabloid, but never tell it to a man who drinks more than three or four a day.
- from Tender Is The Night
Have a great Monday!
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Dictionary Porn!
I love my two-volume Britannica World Language Edition of Funk & Wagnalls New Practical Standard Dictionary… I really do!
“Wherever did you find such a treasure?” you ask.
I used these dictionaries in a public library one day, and I was so impressed… I went home and I said to myself… “How in the world can I get these dictionaries?”
I mean, for one thing, they’re a part of a set!
And like, they are old. Really old.
You can’t just go out and buy them.
But… where there is a will, there’s always a way!
I put an add in the paper.
The next day… there was the following in the Miscellaneous Want-Ads:
“Do you have the two-volume Britannica World Language Edition of Funk & Wagnalls New Practical Standard Dictionary? If so, I will buy it from you. You name the price. Call Cipriano at _______.”
Same day I had a call.
Some old guy: “Yes, I have these books in my basement, and I’ll sell ‘em.”
Me: “What would you like for them sir?”
… pause.
Some old guy: “Twenty-five bucks?”
Me: “What’s your address sir, I’ll be right over.”
When I got there, an approximately 200-year-old man opened the door, and he could hardly even lift these two huge books. Said he never even looks at them anymore.
I said… “If you let me have them, I will take good care of them. And I promise… I will look at them often.”
I gladly handed him the twenty-five dollars.
And these books have become one of the most important, and well-used parts of my bookshelf. I will take good care of them…
The old man was happy to get rid of them.
I was happy to buy them.
This is just part of my goal… to make the world a better place… for everyone involved!
Now.... in all seriousness. My next global conquest concerns the acquisition of the latest edition of the 20-volume, 21,728 page Oxford English Dictionary.
I salivate at the thought.
A mere $2,000.00.
Given that price tag, here is the practical question I have got to face head-on now.... Do I gotta wait for some old guy to happen to be cleaning his basement on his 200th birthday.... stopping for some tea and a cataracty glimpse at the newspaper’s Want-Ads... maybe a shot of air at the wheezing respirator?
No.
I want them now.
I can’t wait for some professor to grow ancient!
Someone suggested to me, “Maybe you should settle for the cheaper CD-ROM version?”
Settle?
For one thing, I hate that word at the best of times.
Secondly.... NO!
I would rather reinforce the particle board in my IKEA bookshelf, thank you!
To hold them!
To hold them!
I WANT THE BOOKS.
I WANT THE BOOKS.
“Wherever did you find such a treasure?” you ask.
I used these dictionaries in a public library one day, and I was so impressed… I went home and I said to myself… “How in the world can I get these dictionaries?”
I mean, for one thing, they’re a part of a set!
And like, they are old. Really old.
You can’t just go out and buy them.
But… where there is a will, there’s always a way!
I put an add in the paper.
The next day… there was the following in the Miscellaneous Want-Ads:
“Do you have the two-volume Britannica World Language Edition of Funk & Wagnalls New Practical Standard Dictionary? If so, I will buy it from you. You name the price. Call Cipriano at _______.”
Same day I had a call.
Some old guy: “Yes, I have these books in my basement, and I’ll sell ‘em.”
Me: “What would you like for them sir?”
… pause.
Some old guy: “Twenty-five bucks?”
Me: “What’s your address sir, I’ll be right over.”
When I got there, an approximately 200-year-old man opened the door, and he could hardly even lift these two huge books. Said he never even looks at them anymore.
I said… “If you let me have them, I will take good care of them. And I promise… I will look at them often.”
I gladly handed him the twenty-five dollars.
And these books have become one of the most important, and well-used parts of my bookshelf. I will take good care of them…
The old man was happy to get rid of them.
I was happy to buy them.
This is just part of my goal… to make the world a better place… for everyone involved!
Now.... in all seriousness. My next global conquest concerns the acquisition of the latest edition of the 20-volume, 21,728 page Oxford English Dictionary.
I salivate at the thought.
A mere $2,000.00.
Given that price tag, here is the practical question I have got to face head-on now.... Do I gotta wait for some old guy to happen to be cleaning his basement on his 200th birthday.... stopping for some tea and a cataracty glimpse at the newspaper’s Want-Ads... maybe a shot of air at the wheezing respirator?
No.
I want them now.
I can’t wait for some professor to grow ancient!
Someone suggested to me, “Maybe you should settle for the cheaper CD-ROM version?”
Settle?
For one thing, I hate that word at the best of times.
Secondly.... NO!
I would rather reinforce the particle board in my IKEA bookshelf, thank you!
To hold them!
To hold them!
I WANT THE BOOKS.
I WANT THE BOOKS.
What is an Entmoot?
I began this blogpage with a reference to Entmoots and so I will take a moment to describe what they are (as if 98% of readers don’t already know).A few friends and I get together periodically for what we call Entmoots.
An entmoot is basically a gathering of incredibly wise trees.
Anyone who has read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings knows what I am talking about. I have read this trilogy twice through and I will read it yet again, even after seeing all of the Jackson movies with my fellow Ents.
Etymologically, the word “moot” is an archaic term meaning “argue, debate, discuss.” In early English history a moot was a meeting held to discuss local affairs. Moot comes from the Old English gemot, meaning “meeting.”
Tolkien [an accomplished philologist... some of his wordwork even finding its way into the Oxford English dictionary you know... like the words warm, wasp, water, wick, wallop, waggle, winter, walnut, wampum and walrus... the definitions are his] simply tacked on this ancient word moot, suffixed it, if you will, to his wonderful creation, the Ent. In his trilogy, Ents were the Guardians of the Forest and the Shepherds of Trees. Half man and half trees, they were fourteen feet tall [this was average Ent-height... some were bigger yes, but Jackson colossally exaggerated their height for the movie... much as he gave the characters portrayed by Liv Tyler and Kate Blanchett much more airtime than the books do], and the eldest had lived in Middle-earth for nine Ages of Stars and the Sun. I think of them as horticultural Pegasuses.
Lord of the Ents was Fangorn, who in the common tongue was called Treebeard. He was one of the tallest, and definitely the wisest of Ents. Treebeard was rough-barked, with huge branches for arms, a long sweeping green beard of foliage, and his seven-fingered hands were gnarled and knotted.
Aside from their rare Entmoots, the Ents were a solitary folk, living apart from one another in isolated Ent houses in the great forests and some Ents had Entwives.
The houses were often cave-like, and needed to be plentifully supplied with spring water. Here they took their meals, not solid food but a glowing liquid (Ent-draughts) stored in great stone jars. Almost immortal, they were an incredibly peaceable bunch, and lived in Middle-earth through many eons of relative quietness.
However, in the year 3019, Treebeard met the wandering hobbits Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took (or rather.... they met him, if anyone recalls the story) and it was then that he learned of the evil wizard Saruman’s new policy of clear-cutting that was going on in Fangorn. Saruman was waging war from his stronghold in Isengard, and his vicious horde of foul jibberish-yapping Orcs were hacking away at the forest of Fangorn.
Note to Self: Never tick off a tree that is like twenty feet tall and half-human.
When Treebeard understands what is happening he is greatly miffed. It rustles his leaves. He wants to pluck his roots out by their..... roots! His sap is soured! His twig is snapped. He gets all bent out of shape.
And he calls an Entmoot.
On the morning of February 30, Treebeard carried the two hobbits to Derndingle in southwestern Fangorn, the site of the Entmoot. Here they were met by about fifty Ents, give or take a branch or two. The first result of their Ent-mumblings was a conclusion that Merry and Pippin were not Orcs, and furthermore, whatever they were, they should be added to the approved Ent-list of living creatures. Treebeard then explained matters concerning Saruman to the other Ents so they could come to a decision. Quickbeam, one of the youngest of the Ents, quickly took it upon himself to be the personal protector of the two hobbit lads.
The Entmoot lasted for three days. [Our modern-day coffee-shop ones are much shorter, and much less decisive and drastic in their conclusions]. Merry and Pippin could hear the voices rising and falling as the Ents debated. Then suddenly, on the afternoon of March 2, there was an ominous silence followed by a great shout. The Ents had decided to go to war against Saruman. They marched out of Derndingle, south toward Isengard, singing as they went. On their way they were joined by the Huorns, the Tree-spirits whom the Ents commanded and whose strength was nearly as great as their own. Entish wrath was unleashed, I say! It was called the Battle of the Hornburg.
And man did they kick butt!
After the War of the Ring, the Ents lived on peacefully in the Entwood, yet they continued to wane and the Fourth Age was believed to be their last.
Anyone who knows a bit about Tolkien knows that he was incredibly fond of trees. Indeed, people described him as somewhat treelike! I have always loved this quote, this self-confession of the man himself:
"I am in fact a hobbit in all but size. I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much."
One day I believe I would like to write an essay on The Entlike Nature of Tolkien.
So we have these monthly meetings, me and the guys. They are always fun, provocative, and interesting in their combined murmurings.
In a word, they are entifying.
*************
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Yann Martel's Life Of Pi.
Well I’ll be danged.
It did work.
I’m sure it will take a while for me to get a hang of how this thing really operates.
As I mentioned in the first bloggage, I pretty much LIVE for literature.... good books in general, fictional and non-fictional, and so, while I will probably talk about all manner of things from time to time [like the Pigeon-family that is living on my balcony etc.] I would like to devote the greater percentage of overall bloggageness to things directly bookish.
Here is an example of what I mean. A wee bit on Yann Martel’s Booker Award winning Life of Pi.
I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed Life of Pi on many levels. The adventure itself, the (in my opinion) wonderful descriptive detail, and the way that it begins with all of that philisophical/religious tossed salad effect… little Pi becoming a follower of three different major religions. Wonderful stuff. And don’t even ask me why, but I LOVE the tiger, Richard Parker… I fell big-time for this beast, who was, through and through… a beast.
And this in itself was something that I thought Martel really carried off well. I was always wondering if this terror-of-the-jungle, this thing that bites hyenas heads clean off at the shoulder blades… if he was going to all of a sudden become Old Yeller, and cuddle up with Pi one evening… purring sweet nothings into his ear.
Never happened…
But for a full 227 days this big cat could have swatted Pi right onto his keester and eaten him and Martel always ratcheted up the possibility that this could be so, at any moment. I once spent about half an hour in the very presence of an untethered Bengal tiger. He could have bit my arm off at any moment. Free-ranging, no cage. Just me (and several other people) and this gi-normous Halloween-coloured breathing mini-van of a BEAST, and there is no other word for it. His paw was the size of my head, it was horrid to imagine the sheer cosmetic damage that such a cat could accomplish if it wanted to.
And so, the whole notion of Pi building the raft and spending so much time tethered to the lifeboat… this was ingenious. It was something that I probably would not have thought of if I was trying to write the book… yet something I probably would have thought of if I was Pi.
I went to a Yann Martel reading and discussion evening shortly after reading the book, and I will report a bit on it here, in reference to the book itself.
First of all, Yann was extremely interesting, very humble, gracious, very patient with everyone’s sometimes silly questions, and he had big hair. Really big hair. Richard Parker would like to have so much hair! Like a tornado had touched down and stopped just short of lifting him skyward. But… it suited him. He looked very suave… he exuded intelligence, physically and verbally.
The patience of an elephant. During the introduction, someone’s cell phone directly behind me went into something not unlike the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in high gear. The host then directed everyone to turn their cell phones off. Not five minutes into Yann’s reading… another cell phone starts blaring! Yann takes it in stride. But then later, in the question period, Yann was explaining a very deep point, and just when there was that holy hush in the place, and my pen was poised to do that “automatic writing” that one does when one is not even looking down at one’s paper (you’ve been there?)… well, this girl literally jumps up and walks out of the room.
Yann COMPLETELY lost his train of thought. I mean utterly had no idea. Could not say even one more word. It was terrible.
A man who introduced himself as “a minister” came up to the microphone and asked… “You said that the three-toed sloth reminded Pi of God. Can you explain this please?”
(Much laughter in room)…. But when it all died down… Yann gave a wonderful explanation… he said that when we look into the eyes of an animal, “we meet mystery.” He said that we get a profound sense that we are like them… but with this, is an equally profound sense that we are NOT like them. He equated this to our “wonderings” about God. He said “A dog does not have our intellect, and yet it gets by. So, what is the purpose of our intellect? Is it not there that we may attempt an understanding of life that is greater than that of a dog’s?”
He said that Richard Parker was originally an elephant. Can you imagine? Then, he was going to be a rhinoceros (because Yann said the rhinoceros has the most wonderful eyes of any beast). Alas though, the rhino only eats grass….. no good.
Yann intended Life of Pi to be a sort of meta-novel. Of his narrative strategy he said that his aim was to tell a story that was progressively (increasingly) unbelievable. But, by dint of increased detail… you are compelled to believe the “animal” story when presented with the alternative..
He purposely put the blind cannibal thing in there to make the reader say… “Oh come on… this is ridiculous.” (Even though the whole scenario is based on a verified historical account of two ships that met in the ocean, literally collided into each other, and each entire crew were blind. One man chronicled the whole thing in a journal, as he locked himself in a room and listened as people were eating each other.)
Same thing with the floating island… can you picture that in some Carnival Cruise catalog… Kathie Lee Gifford rattling on about the “all-you-can-eat” Dead Dorado Nightly Buffet?)… Yann wanted to make the story increasingly “unbelievable, yet compelling.”
I don’t know about you… but there were times when I was asking myself… “Are there such things as floating seven mile wide rugs of seaweed?”
Yann says that he made up the name of “meerkats” and only later did someone tell him that there are things called Meerkats in Disney’s “The Lion King”.
Yann did all of this because he believes that a good novel makes you suspend your disbelief. But he followed this up by saying that this is the same with “a good religion”. It does the same thing. A BAD religion does not succeed at this, and these we call “sects” or “cults”. (His words, not mine). But an interesting perspective I thought.
Anyhoo… the most interesting thing Yann said about the book was when he said he could sum up Life of Pi in three sentences.
These are:
Life is a story.
You can choose your story.
Choose the better story.
The “better” story for Yann (his words) is the one that “makes room for the transcendental.” He said “A story with a transcendent vision is is the better story.”
Yann wanted his readers to grapple with the second story (the story told to the Japanese investigators) and then have to “make a leap” and ask themselves which story they’re going to believe.
One woman came up to the microphone and she was nearly in tears, and she was angry with Yann for doing this at the end of the book, because she complained “now I can’t get that second story out of my head, and it’s ruining the first story entirely and I do not know which one to believe.”
Yann looked perplexed, genuinely did not know how to help this woman, I swear she was about to burst into tears, and then he said… “Well, what do I know? I’m just the author!”
(Much laughter… more cell phones going off… general pandemonium…)
And now for some blatant Yann-trivia:
He says he has not owned a pet in years.
For the past while he has been teaching a university course in Germany (I forget which city), and this course is entitled “The Animal and Literature.”
A mathematician-type in the audience pointed out to Yann that the fractional equivalent for “pi” is apparently 22/7, or 22 over 7. “Is this why you had Pi out on the sea for 227 days?”
Yann shook his bushy head and said “No.” This was news to Yann… he had never even heard of this mathematical co-incidence.
He said that he chose the number 227 because it is a prime number, divisible by only one and itself. A representation of Pi’s solitary struggle for survival.
The naming of “Pi” (after the Piscine Molitor, a swimming pool in Paris) is meant to symbolize a rational rectangular body of water (a swimming pool) cast out into an irrational boundless body of water (the ocean).
“Tsimtsum” is an ancient Hebrew term for the Kabbalah.
Richard Parker was the name of a character in Poe’s “Arthur Gordon Pym” story… this was a guy that was cannabalized. The name also appears three times in several supposed real-life histories of cannibalism on the high seas.
And this… far and away… the funniest moment of the evening….
Yann said that he has had to address numerous inquiries (from women) asking him if this story is a metaphor for marriage. At first he was perplexed, and kept asking “Why?”
Now he knows better.
All of these women tell him that Pi’s relationship with Richard Parker reflects their own relationships with their husband. They have to:
- train him.
- feed him.
- clean up after him.
- and then he leaves you without saying goodbye!
In all seriousness, Yann’s American editor told him that two women have found the courage to leave their husbands after reading the book.
It did work.
I’m sure it will take a while for me to get a hang of how this thing really operates.
As I mentioned in the first bloggage, I pretty much LIVE for literature.... good books in general, fictional and non-fictional, and so, while I will probably talk about all manner of things from time to time [like the Pigeon-family that is living on my balcony etc.] I would like to devote the greater percentage of overall bloggageness to things directly bookish.
Here is an example of what I mean. A wee bit on Yann Martel’s Booker Award winning Life of Pi.
I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed Life of Pi on many levels. The adventure itself, the (in my opinion) wonderful descriptive detail, and the way that it begins with all of that philisophical/religious tossed salad effect… little Pi becoming a follower of three different major religions. Wonderful stuff. And don’t even ask me why, but I LOVE the tiger, Richard Parker… I fell big-time for this beast, who was, through and through… a beast.
And this in itself was something that I thought Martel really carried off well. I was always wondering if this terror-of-the-jungle, this thing that bites hyenas heads clean off at the shoulder blades… if he was going to all of a sudden become Old Yeller, and cuddle up with Pi one evening… purring sweet nothings into his ear.
Never happened…
But for a full 227 days this big cat could have swatted Pi right onto his keester and eaten him and Martel always ratcheted up the possibility that this could be so, at any moment. I once spent about half an hour in the very presence of an untethered Bengal tiger. He could have bit my arm off at any moment. Free-ranging, no cage. Just me (and several other people) and this gi-normous Halloween-coloured breathing mini-van of a BEAST, and there is no other word for it. His paw was the size of my head, it was horrid to imagine the sheer cosmetic damage that such a cat could accomplish if it wanted to.
And so, the whole notion of Pi building the raft and spending so much time tethered to the lifeboat… this was ingenious. It was something that I probably would not have thought of if I was trying to write the book… yet something I probably would have thought of if I was Pi.
I went to a Yann Martel reading and discussion evening shortly after reading the book, and I will report a bit on it here, in reference to the book itself.
First of all, Yann was extremely interesting, very humble, gracious, very patient with everyone’s sometimes silly questions, and he had big hair. Really big hair. Richard Parker would like to have so much hair! Like a tornado had touched down and stopped just short of lifting him skyward. But… it suited him. He looked very suave… he exuded intelligence, physically and verbally.
The patience of an elephant. During the introduction, someone’s cell phone directly behind me went into something not unlike the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in high gear. The host then directed everyone to turn their cell phones off. Not five minutes into Yann’s reading… another cell phone starts blaring! Yann takes it in stride. But then later, in the question period, Yann was explaining a very deep point, and just when there was that holy hush in the place, and my pen was poised to do that “automatic writing” that one does when one is not even looking down at one’s paper (you’ve been there?)… well, this girl literally jumps up and walks out of the room.
Yann COMPLETELY lost his train of thought. I mean utterly had no idea. Could not say even one more word. It was terrible.
A man who introduced himself as “a minister” came up to the microphone and asked… “You said that the three-toed sloth reminded Pi of God. Can you explain this please?”
(Much laughter in room)…. But when it all died down… Yann gave a wonderful explanation… he said that when we look into the eyes of an animal, “we meet mystery.” He said that we get a profound sense that we are like them… but with this, is an equally profound sense that we are NOT like them. He equated this to our “wonderings” about God. He said “A dog does not have our intellect, and yet it gets by. So, what is the purpose of our intellect? Is it not there that we may attempt an understanding of life that is greater than that of a dog’s?”
He said that Richard Parker was originally an elephant. Can you imagine? Then, he was going to be a rhinoceros (because Yann said the rhinoceros has the most wonderful eyes of any beast). Alas though, the rhino only eats grass….. no good.
Yann intended Life of Pi to be a sort of meta-novel. Of his narrative strategy he said that his aim was to tell a story that was progressively (increasingly) unbelievable. But, by dint of increased detail… you are compelled to believe the “animal” story when presented with the alternative..
He purposely put the blind cannibal thing in there to make the reader say… “Oh come on… this is ridiculous.” (Even though the whole scenario is based on a verified historical account of two ships that met in the ocean, literally collided into each other, and each entire crew were blind. One man chronicled the whole thing in a journal, as he locked himself in a room and listened as people were eating each other.)
Same thing with the floating island… can you picture that in some Carnival Cruise catalog… Kathie Lee Gifford rattling on about the “all-you-can-eat” Dead Dorado Nightly Buffet?)… Yann wanted to make the story increasingly “unbelievable, yet compelling.”
I don’t know about you… but there were times when I was asking myself… “Are there such things as floating seven mile wide rugs of seaweed?”
Yann says that he made up the name of “meerkats” and only later did someone tell him that there are things called Meerkats in Disney’s “The Lion King”.
Yann did all of this because he believes that a good novel makes you suspend your disbelief. But he followed this up by saying that this is the same with “a good religion”. It does the same thing. A BAD religion does not succeed at this, and these we call “sects” or “cults”. (His words, not mine). But an interesting perspective I thought.
Anyhoo… the most interesting thing Yann said about the book was when he said he could sum up Life of Pi in three sentences.
These are:
Life is a story.
You can choose your story.
Choose the better story.
The “better” story for Yann (his words) is the one that “makes room for the transcendental.” He said “A story with a transcendent vision is is the better story.”
Yann wanted his readers to grapple with the second story (the story told to the Japanese investigators) and then have to “make a leap” and ask themselves which story they’re going to believe.
One woman came up to the microphone and she was nearly in tears, and she was angry with Yann for doing this at the end of the book, because she complained “now I can’t get that second story out of my head, and it’s ruining the first story entirely and I do not know which one to believe.”
Yann looked perplexed, genuinely did not know how to help this woman, I swear she was about to burst into tears, and then he said… “Well, what do I know? I’m just the author!”
(Much laughter… more cell phones going off… general pandemonium…)
And now for some blatant Yann-trivia:
He says he has not owned a pet in years.
For the past while he has been teaching a university course in Germany (I forget which city), and this course is entitled “The Animal and Literature.”
A mathematician-type in the audience pointed out to Yann that the fractional equivalent for “pi” is apparently 22/7, or 22 over 7. “Is this why you had Pi out on the sea for 227 days?”
Yann shook his bushy head and said “No.” This was news to Yann… he had never even heard of this mathematical co-incidence.
He said that he chose the number 227 because it is a prime number, divisible by only one and itself. A representation of Pi’s solitary struggle for survival.
The naming of “Pi” (after the Piscine Molitor, a swimming pool in Paris) is meant to symbolize a rational rectangular body of water (a swimming pool) cast out into an irrational boundless body of water (the ocean).
“Tsimtsum” is an ancient Hebrew term for the Kabbalah.
Richard Parker was the name of a character in Poe’s “Arthur Gordon Pym” story… this was a guy that was cannabalized. The name also appears three times in several supposed real-life histories of cannibalism on the high seas.
And this… far and away… the funniest moment of the evening….
Yann said that he has had to address numerous inquiries (from women) asking him if this story is a metaphor for marriage. At first he was perplexed, and kept asking “Why?”
Now he knows better.
All of these women tell him that Pi’s relationship with Richard Parker reflects their own relationships with their husband. They have to:
- train him.
- feed him.
- clean up after him.
- and then he leaves you without saying goodbye!
In all seriousness, Yann’s American editor told him that two women have found the courage to leave their husbands after reading the book.
Please do not adjust your brain.....
....this is just a test.The truth is, the first time I really even heard the word "blog" was a few hours ago at an Entmoot meeting during the drinking of about four gallons of Starbucks coffee. I was instantly fascinated with the idea, and well, if this thing works, perhaps I will come back later on and describe what an Entmoot meeting is.
Or something.
As I drove home excited as all hell to fire up my laptop and try this thing out I thought of the name "bookpuddle" because well, I practically LIVE to read books.
Literature, I suppose, is my greatest interest.
Well, here goes. Let's see if this gets out into blogland.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)