Improbable Book of the Week (4)

Serpent and Dove: X-rated letter's from My ex who still believes he is Marilyn Monroe reincarnated (Volume 1) (and there are SIX volumes!),

by Raven Beckwith

Don't ask.
I haven't read it, anyway.
But here is the opening sentence, for your reading pleasure:

My dear goddess Laura:
I have been searching the Internet for most of the day since last writing you on how to make a locking key chastity belt which is your first command on me.

(Chastity belt: now there's a term I never thought I'd see written in this blog!)

You know... come to think of it, it could be a piece of humour, of satire, for all I know. In which case it might be quite good.

Do let me know if you read it.

Virtually dead

I just noticed the last post was the hundredth. And while we (our group) aren't big on anniversaries, I am just glad we didn't get to hit the 100 mark with this following musing...

A few hours ago, the story hit the internet about a mother who apparently "tweeted" about her two-year-old son's drowning-in-progress, updating her 5000 Twitter followers about the rescue procedures... and, eventually, about the little one's death.

OK, "drowning-in-progress" is a bit harsh and probably very unjust. She posted a "tweet" about her son being found in the pool, and she asked for prayers. (That actually sounds like a very good idea especially if the person in question actually believes in the power of prayer.)

Unfortunately, the rescue efforts failed: five hours later, the little boy was pronounced dead. And the mother, it seems (I wasn't one of her followers, and now her "tweets" are protected), promptly updated her followers about it, posting her son's photo.

Now, everyone is up in arms. The internet is abuzz with this sad story, journalists are filing their reports for tonight's news.

But what these media don't know is that there was another such story - how true, I don't know and so I can't tell - just two days ago. Someone posted on an astrology forum that her teenage son had just committed suicide.

Now, I am not a member of said forum and I am not familiar with the person in question; in all fairness, neither is the member of our group who informed me about this today (after the Military-Mom story broke). She doesn't know this person, none of us here do. But judging by the responses of the members on said forum, pretty much everyone there took the post seriously.

If it is true... what does it say about people? About the times? About our place in the virtual reality?

Let me tell you: I have always abhorred people who judge others' grief by their own (more or less weepy or exhibitionist) standards. I know from personal experience that everyone deals (or they should) with grief in their own manner. And I know (again, from personal experience) that the deepest grief is often wordless, tearless, apparently emotionless.
I also know that grief makes people behave in the most unpredictable ways - and doubly so if they are under some sort of medication. Also, in the case of "Military-Mom", I don't think it was particularly horrendous that she asked her followers to pray for her son. It's not what I would have done - or even thought about it - but I am not her, and she is not me.

But I must admit I do find it eerie, to put it mildly, that anyone could have the "composure" (for lack of a better term) to even think about their internet pals in such a moment. Or are they - virtual friends, images on the screen, words and LOLs and OMG - really the only ones that person can turn to?

There seems to be something profoundly wrong with these people and their perception of the world. And personally I don't think the internet is helping them as much as they probably think it is. It is a net - and they got caught in it, confusing it with "real" life.


I have to go now - something urgent came up (a good thing, don't worry ;) - but I'll be back to edit this and add further thoughts.

Meanwhile, stay well, my friends.
And keep your eyes on the real people around you.

Google's Goggles ogling at you

Just when you thought that typing for information (instead of opening a book, let alone going to mysterious places like the one featured in the titillating intro to our last post) without even having to care about proper spelling anymore was the non plus ultra in accessing information, it turns out Google has anticipated the ultimate whim and desire of the semi-literate - but doesn't it always? - and is now about to offer a word-free search:

Google Goggles

Cool, huh?

Now ask yourself: who, except maybe people who for some objective and particularly painful reason really cannot use words in their search, would ever need that?

The answer: in time, and thanks to Google (among other pillars of our culture and society), pretty much everybody.

The Code

Being a musing about an 
amusingly museless author
and his non-amusing success

(And if it weren't enough, it all takes place in a museum!)

Renowned bestseller writer Bram Down staggered through the vaulted archway of the mysterious building.

It was apparent that nobody had visited the building in a very long time.

He opened a door: behind it lay a great hall lined with shelves, each with big, fat books on it. A ray of sunlight mysteriously filtered through one of the windows through which the outside could be observed.

Warily, he approached a shelf and took out one of the books: it was written in code. He opened another one: it was also written in code.

But then, as he examined book after book, a pattern started to emerge before the appealingly world-weary eyes of the respected playboy: the first book in the row had an A imprinted on it; and the one next to it, a B.

A rush of excitement flushed through the synapses of the brilliant tennis player; hastily, he examined the positions of the rest of the books on the shelf. They matched perfectly. The order of the books aligned perfectly with the exact succession of letters of the English alphabet!

Want to read further?
You know where you can go... :)

Fear not: this is not about a certain writer's countless fiction-disguised-as-fact-parading-as-fiction tit-bits and other tits - sorry, bits - of "theory".
In this case, exposing the litany of factual errors would be like beating a dead horse. (The man could not get the title artist's name right, for crying out loud - what do you expect?)


No: it's about how badly it is written.
And that is relevant. Because anyone can dream up an improbable phantasmagory - or even just plunder other people's theories - and anyone can demonstrate ignorance. It is human - it is to be forgiven.


But bad writing really is unforgivable. It lowers the standards of culture at large. It demeans not only literature itself but the very people who, in their ignorance, praise it.

But where to start...?
Where he started: right at the beginning, with the opening two words (now that is a feat - that's almost like screwing a person's life a minute or so after s/he is born).

Rule # 1 of writing is that, save for certain specific exceptions, you do not describe your characters' attributes or reflected status directly, i.e. by plainly saying what or how they are, especially in the eyes of the other characters in your fictional world: you indicate it, indirectly, through the character's words, gestures, other characters' reactions, the circumstances, etc.

But at least he didn't waste anyone's time with false impressions about the quality of the writing ahead - I'll give him that. Time is money; especially mine.

However, what really got me was this: a monogram consisting of no less than 14 (fourteen) letters. 
If you are going to introduce an oxy-moronic "monogram" like that, at least make it worth the reader's while or money. For example, place the hero(ine) in a whimsically charming inn in the Viennese Woods and in a jacquard bathrobe with a "monogram" saying: Am Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän Gasthaus.
Now that would be a a bathrobe worth reading!

Why am I writing about this now?
Well, I am tempted to retort: because.

But the reality is, I am writing about his now because our illustrious writer's masterpiece made it to nro. 1 of a certain short- (very short) list:

THE FIVE WORST BOOKS OF THE DECADE
(presumably, in English)

Oh, I can almost hear you:

"Well, ha ha, say what you will, he is laughing all the way to the bank!"

Maybe so.
But if money is all you've got... it ain't much, my friend.

Moreover, the money he is laughingly collecting is yours.
And he is laughing at you.



IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU MIGHT ENJOY:
The Emperor's new clothes are the latest fashion

An American, (not) pure and (not) simple

On November 2nd, 2007, news of a horrific crime shook the ancient and usually placid town of Perugia, Italy. A British student, Meredith Kercher - one of the thousands of students who attend Perugia's prestigious university and para-universitary courses - had been found dead in her bed, with her throat slit, after apparently being forced to engage in sex.

Soon after the murder, Kercher's roommate, an American student from Seattle, Amanda Knox, and her then-new boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were arrested on suspicion of murder. Weeks later, another suspect, a semi-vagrant African, Rudy Guede, was also arrested on the same charge.

Early today, shortly after midnight (CET), two years and 33 days after the crime, Amanda Knox was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 26 years of prison.
Raffaele Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years.
(Rudy Guede had been sentenced to 30 years a while ago.)

Meredith Kercher, b. 1986 - d. 1. XI. 2007

If you are at all interested in this story, you probably know all about it, anyway (or it should be easy for you to google out anything else you might want to know).
And I am not writing this to rehash the grizzly details of the story, much less to speculate about the motives, or indeed about the trial of the deadly trio.

I just want to register - as shortly and succinctly as I can - my surprise at the coverage of the trial in the USA media and, in some cases, their reaction to the verdict.

It seems that, in the eyes of many American media outlets (exceptions are a given, of course) and the public they feed with news, Amanda Knox is to be presumed innocent even after having been proven guilty, not because of some serious misgivings regarding the presentation of the evidence, but simply because she is - an American.

Of course they didn't put it like that (although some came dangerously close), but all the "circumstantial evidence", if you'll forgive the expression, points to it quite clearly.
For one thing, nobody seems to be hollering against Sollecito's conviction, even though the evidence against him was actually weaker than against Knox. But then, he's an Italian... which, of course, shouldn't matter IF this were really about wrongful conviction. But it is not: it's clearly about nationality.

And, frankly, I am surprised.
If the USA were a geographically small country, with just a few million (or less) inhabitants, I would understand (if not condone) such a bias: after all, each of its citizens is, in a way, an "ambassador" in the eyes of the world.
(Of course, in principle the same goes for the citizen of any country, anywhere - but "big" countries have an immense advantage in numbers, so they shouldn't worry about the occasional black sheep tarnishing the image of the country abroad.)

Amanda Knox is not an "ambassador" of the USA.
She is not even the "ambassador" of that fabulous city that is Seattle.
She only represents herself.

But the USA, after all these years of active participation in an increasingly shrinking world, still appears to have worrisomely parochial-minded media. After all, if the venerable New York Times, respected around the world (whether justifiably or not, I am not entirely sure) for its "liberal", humanistic, globally minded reporting, indulges in (admittedly personal) musings like this... what are we to think about other, smaller, publicly less prominent American media and the image of the world they seem to be presenting to their readership? (And precisely this - not the Kercher murder per se, much less Amanda Knox, is the main point of this writing.)

Most revoltingly (and ridiculously), many reports seem to question the Italian justice system, implying that its investigative methods, technology and judicial system in general are inadequate, primitive, perhaps corrupt - not based on any previous cases, mind you (or if so, they fail to mention those previous cases), but simply because it is not American.
Furthermore, they seem to ignore the fact that Italy is a part of the EU, which is by now much more than just an economic and loosely political framework, and that in many areas the EU's laws are (not always fortunately) much more stringent than those in the USA.

Don't get me wrong: God knows that the justice system of Italy is faaaaar from being perfect.
Sadly, the same goes for the USA justice system.
Even more sadly, the same goes for the justice system in any country.
However, in the Kercher murder case there is little evidence that anything substantial went amiss at any point of the investigation an the trial itself.

But no, certain USA media outlets - and, unsurprisingly, a sizeable part of the public - seem to prefer to view Italy in the light of a moth-eaten stereotype born out of Hollywood-spawned flicks on "Little Italy" (New York, USA).
And Amanda Knox's performing cartwheels during interrogation (yes, you read correctly) is presented not as possible indication of a deranged mind (brought on by severe stress, if you will), but by her being - an "athlete"... (In other words, a healthy young all-American gal in distress, faced with stuffy Italian policemen and corrupt members of the Italian judicial system.)

Let me tell you: such biased reporting has the potential of "tarnishing" the image of the USA much more than Amanda Knox and her wrongdoings ever could. Specifically, it presents the USA public as close-minded, provincial and blissfully (or not) unaware of the reality in other countries around the world. Heck, I am starting to suspect that even many of the NYT readers still think the USA are "the best country in the world" (whatever that means)! And how could they not if their media feeds them distorted images of the world?

No: Amanda Knox was not on trial - or convicted - because of her behaviour. Not even cartwheels - no, not even the cartwheels! - brought her to where she is today.
(Although they might have been a good reason for psychiatric treatment...)

It was holding the knife with which Meredith Kercher was killed.
It was her covering her ears to block out Meredith's screams.
It was the fact that her defence - and she did have more than decent, high profile representation - couldn't demonstrate anything that would counter the all too damning evidence against her.

What very few, if any, American media seem to mention is the fact that had Knox been tried and found guilty in the USA, she could easily face the death penalty.
Not so in the EU.
And so, there is hope, after all.
If she really is "not an assassin", as she claims, then in time proof may be found and justice will be (re)done.

Meanwhile, she can do cartwheels in her cell.
And she can breathe air, drink water, eat, think, read, feel love, feel hope.

None of which Meredith Kercher can do ever again.

I don't want Paradise

(A fragment)

I know that the happiness of seeing beauty, of experiencing a connection with »history« - the sheer pleasure of travelling - is nothing but an expression of the longing for the wider, greater, brighter bliss of ineffable domains.

I know that the beauty of this world is a mere – and very pale, immeasurably pale – reflection of "What-is-to-come", of the great Beyond. But I am willing to settle for it. I am willing to forgo the highest bliss of the Whole for the bitter-sweet pleasure of the humble human Quest. To forever wander (and wonder) – as long as it is in the company of my loved ones, so be it.

I don't want Paradise. I want those glimpses of it, from among the thorns and out of the mud road, that make up our human happiness.

Lobotomy by any other name...

This just in...

The New York Times, November 27, 2009

(Follow the link above to access the article at its original location.)

Surgery for Mental Ills Offers Both Hope and Risk

By BENEDICT CAREY

One was a middle-aged man who refused to get into the shower. The other was a teenager who was afraid to get out.

The man, Leonard, a writer living outside Chicago, found himself completely unable to wash himself or brush his teeth. The teenager, Ross, growing up in a suburb of New York, had become so terrified of germs that he would regularly shower for seven hours. Each received a diagnosis of severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, or O.C.D., and for years neither felt comfortable enough to leave the house.

But leave they eventually did, traveling in desperation to a hospital in Rhode Island for an experimental brain operation in which four raisin-sized holes were burned deep in their brains.

Today, two years after surgery, Ross is 21 and in college. “It saved my life,” he said. “I really believe that.” The same cannot be said for Leonard, 67, who had surgery in 1995. “There was no change at all,” he said. “I still don’t leave the house.”

Both men asked that their last names not be used to protect their privacy. The great promise of neuroscience at the end of the last century was that it would revolutionize the treatment of psychiatric problems. But the first real application of advanced brain science is not novel at all. It is a precise, sophisticated version of an old and controversial approach: psychosurgery, in which doctors operate directly on the brain.

In the last decade or so, more than 500 people have undergone brain surgery for problems like depression, anxiety, Tourette’s syndrome, even obesity, most as a part of medical studies. The results have been encouraging, and this year, for the first time since frontal lobotomy fell into disrepute in the 1950s, the Food and Drug Administration approved one of the surgical techniques for some cases of O.C.D.

While no more than a few thousand people are impaired enough to meet the strict criteria for the surgery right now, millions more suffering from an array of severe conditions, from depression to obesity, could seek such operations as the techniques become less experimental.

But with that hope comes risk. For all the progress that has been made, some psychiatrists and medical ethicists say, doctors still do not know much about the circuits they are tampering with, and the results are unpredictable: some people improve, others feel little or nothing, and an unlucky few actually get worse. In this country, at least one patient was left unable to feed or care for herself after botched surgery.

Moreover, demand for the operations is so high that it could tempt less experienced surgeons to offer them, without the oversight or support of research institutions.

And if the operations are oversold as a kind of all-purpose cure for emotional problems — which they are not, doctors say — then the great promise could quickly feel like a betrayal.

“We have this idea — it’s almost a fetish — that progress is its own justification, that if something is promising, then how can we not rush to relieve suffering?” said Paul Root Wolpe, a medical ethicist at Emory University.

It was not so long ago, he noted, that doctors considered the frontal lobotomy a major advance — only to learn that the operation left thousands of patients with irreversible brain damage. Many promising medical ideas have run aground, Dr. Wolpe added, “and that’s why we have to move very cautiously.”

Dr. Darin D. Dougherty, director of the division of neurotherapeutics at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard, put it more bluntly. Given the history of failed techniques, like frontal lobotomy, he said, “If this effort somehow goes wrong, it’ll shut down this approach for another hundred years.”

Read the rest of the article here.

(You may have to register, but it's fast and free of charge.)

OK, so it's not lobotomy, technically speaking.
And no, we aren't luddite hippies here, nor are we afraid of modern science.
It's quite the opposite, actually: we are afraid of old-fashioned "science", which equates the mind with the brain and reduces mental processes to more or less complex interactions of chemicals.

In our opinion, "mental ills" do not originate in the plumbing of the brain, nor can they be resolved by tinkering with it - not even in cases when the procedure seems to have worked.

Fly towards a secret sky

Sometimes, a word or two is all you need - if it is the right word or two.
That is precisely the function of poetry.

And it doesn't matter who "said it first".
As long as you recognise that word, those words, as a true expression of your soul, that's what it is: a true expression of your soul. You said it first, if only to yourself.

The words above - just the word or two that I needed to ignite my fire tonight - I found here.

And the one who said them "first" was one of the greatest poets of all time: Rumi.

He may have lived eight hundred years ago, but what is eight hundred years - what is eight thousand years - in the face of the never-changing, forever yearning human soul?
He might as well have written these words eight days ago.

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet;
to regard this world as invisible,
and to disregard what appears to be the self.

Spam Lite: Idiot's delight

It is not often that I come face to face with the mail that my many secret admirers and long-time friends (including some pre-t-ty famous names!) in "Nigeria" and elsewhere keep sending me, in the hope of boring through my inhumane unresponsiveness.

But today I was rummaging through my spam pantry - hey, it's been a slow day - and found a beauty the likes of which I haven't seen in a long time. It has everything: mystery, suspense, international intrigue - and even a cryptic metaphysical insight into the nature of Time, which then leads to an astonishingly astute and thorough self-examination process by the recipient.

So, I am reproducing this gem of epistolary elegance in its entirety, for all the WWWorld to share and learn.


CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE UNITED
HEADQUARTER UNITED STATE OF AMERICA
..............................

.............................. ...........

THIS IS TO OFFICIALLY INFORM YOU THAT IT HAS COME TO OUR NOTICE AND WE HAVE THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATED BY THE HELP OF OUR INTELLIGENCE MONITORING NETWORK SYSTEM THAT YOU ARE HAVING AN ILLEGAL TRANSACTION WITH IMPOSTORS CLAIMING TO BE PROF.CHARLES C. SOLUDO OF CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA,OFFICIALS OF OTHER BANKS IN NIGERIA AND LONDON UNITED KINGDOM INCLUDING CITIBANK HSBC BACLAYS BANK ETC,IMPOSTORS CLAIMING TO BE MINISTERS AND NIGERIA GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS.NOW STOP ALL THAT TRANSACTION IMMEDIATELY.

WE HAVE BEEN HAVING MEETINGS FOR THE PAST 6 MONTHS, WHICH ENDED 2 DAYS AGO, WITH THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF UNITED NATIONS AND NIGERIA GOVERNMENT, TO AVOID SCAMS AND FRAUDULANT ACTIVITIES. THIS MAIL IS TO ALL THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE BEEN SCAMMED IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD, THIS INCLUDES ALL THE CONTRACTORS THAT MAY HAVE NOT RECEIVED THEIR DUE CONTRACT FUND, AND PEOPLE THAT HAVE HAD UNFINISHED TRANSACTION DUE TO ONE PROBLEM OR THE OTHER ETC. THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY [CIA] INCONJUCTION WITH UNITED NATIONS AND NIGERIA GOVERNMENT HAVE BROUGHT A SOLUTION TO END THIS PROBLEM. SINCE THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY [CIA] IS INVOLVED IN THIS TRANSACTION, BE REST ASSURED OF 100% RISK FREE BECAUSE IT IS OUR RIGHT TO PROTECT AMERICAN CITIZENS AND ALL THE WORLD.

RIGHT NOW WE HAVE ACCEPTED AFTER THE INVESTIGATIONS AND MEETINGS TO USE AFRI BANK NIGERIA PLC AS THE ONLY LEGITIMATE BANK FOR INHERITANCE /CONTRACT PAYMENT OF $3,000,000 ONLY THROUGH ATM SWIFT CARD , THIS IS THE LATEST INSTRUCTION BY THE NEW ELECTED PRESIDENT ALHAJI UMAR MUSA YAR'ADUA (GCFR) FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA .

BECAUSE OF IMPOSTORS, HERE IS A CODE OF CONDUCT,(ATM 1221) SO YOU HAVE TO INDICATE THIS CODE WHEN CONTACTING THE AFRI BANK ATM CARD PAYMENT CENTRE.THIS CARD CENTER WILL SEND YOU AN INTERSWITCH VISA CARD WHICH YOU WILL USE TO WITHDRAW YOUR MONEY IN ATM MACHINE IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD, SO IF YOU LIKE TO RECIEVE YOUR FUND THIS WAY PLEASE IMMEDIATE CONTACT THE DIRECTOR AFRI BANK NIGERIA PLC,CARD PAYMENT CENTER, CONTACT PERSON,

MRS SHERRY FRANKLINE IGOR
TELL +234-808 6008480
EMAIL: atmcustomercareabplc@yahoo.no , urgentaddress@webmail.co.za

AND ALSO SEND THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:

1.PHONE AND FAX NUMBER,
2.ADDRESS WERE YOU WANT THEM TO SEND THE ATM CARD.
3.YOUR FULL NAME AND TOTAL AMOUNT OF YOUR FUND.
4.YOUR AGE AND OCCUPATION
5.A COPY OF YOUR ID CARD OR PASSPORT

REGARDS,
DAVID OLIVIER
C.I.A SPECIAL AGENT
CONTACT ME HERE IF YOU NEED ASSISTANCE
info00999999@centrum.cz
TEL/FAX: (262)-436-7459




What I find most reassuring of all is the apparent octopus-like presence of this C.I.A. around the world, judging by the country domains of the email addresses used by the officials who kindly watch over my monetary integrity and well-being. (And I am not even an American, mind you!)

Also, I have to admit, I was relieved to receive official word of mouth that the past six months ended two days ago, because sometimes I can get sidetracked in time/space. Then again, they probably knew that. (Duh!)
And notice how subtly, with supreme psychological finesse, they then proceed to test my perception of my own identity! (See the list of information items I am supposed to supply.) You don't get that sort - almost Zen-like in its approach - of holistic character-building for love or money! Well - maybe for money.

Speaking of which, I am thinking I might use the "code of conduct" number they supplied for me to play the lottery...

Make music!

If you've ever wished you could create music, but don't know how to read notes, I have good news for you: your prayers have been answered.
Well... almost.

INudge

It's much better than nothing.
And the web being what it is, this is probably - wink wink, nudge nudge - just the first step leading to a giant leap...

Gate-crashing the (under)world

"Happy he who has passed his whole life mid his own fields, he of whose birth and old age the same house is witness... For him the recurring seasons, not the consuls, mark the year; he knows autumn by his fruits and spring by her flowers."

Claudian, Carmina Minora (XX)*

Something mildly odd happened to me today.

I was supposed to meet a relative of mine in a small (very small) park we both know very well; in fact we had met there many times before. I told her exactly when I would be coming, and I did get there on time.

She wasn't there.
I wasn't surprised: she is usually late for our appointments - so much so that I don't consider her being late at all; if she happens to be on time, she's actually "early".
So I waited.
And waited. And waited.
(No, I did not have the cell phone with me; I don't believe relying on cell phones - or on anything, for that matter - is such a good idea.)

After half an hour I started to get alarmed: she is never that late. So I decided to give her a call from the one phone boot near the park.
As I was approaching the boot, I noticed it was, uncharacteristically, occupied.
It was her: she was calling me.

It turned out she had been waiting for me "more than half an hour !!" (in her parlance that would mean half an hour at most - apparently, this was one of those occasions when she had been "early", i.e. on time) in the very same area where I had been waiting for her.

"So she lied," you must be thinking.
Well... no.
First of all, she may be late for appointments, but a liar she is not.
Secondly, she mentioned a sight - another woman waiting at a very specific spot - that she could not have known of, unless she really was there at the same time as I. Now, that woman had left at least fifteen minutes before I decided to stop waiting and go make a phone call, so my relative would have had to be waiting for at least fifteen minutes in the same area where I was.

That park - actually, a children's playground with big trees - is very small; you can easily see from one side to the other, regardless of where you're standing; and around the time of our appointment it is usually completely deserted. Certainly I didn't notice anyone else while I was waiting there.

How is it possible, then, that we missed each other?

I cannot offer even a speculative answer. The whole thing just doesn't make sense.
But the really funny thing is that the same kind of "mis-missed" appointment happened to me once before, with another person, at a public fountain, where it is impossible to miss anyone standing nearby. And yet, we somehow managed to do just that. (I know for a fact she was there at the same time as I was, because she also happened to mention a specific - fleeting - sight that she could not have known about, unless she had been there... or unless she arranged a very elaborate scam, involving spies surreptitiously surveying the site of our appointment on her behalf and reporting to her, so that it would appear she had been there, when in fact she had not been... You decide which version makes more sense. ;)

The reason I am writing about this today is that the first "missed" appointment, five years ago, also happened on November 8th.

But the reason why I remember the date in the first place is as simple as it is difficult to explain.
Firstly, I am a date freak; I tend to remember dates, whether I want it or not.
Secondly, I always pay special attention to this date and the days surrounding it.

You see, in my experience, November 8th has always been somehow "shady" a date. I have no idea where this notion came from (possibly some early, insufficiently recorded memory), but what is interesting is that apparently the ancient Romans shared my opinion: November 8th, a dies religiosus, was (along with August 24th and October 5th) one of the three days of the year when the mundus (literally, the world), or "navel of the world", the gate that connects this world with the Underworld, was wide open - a day when the departed ones (some more dearly than others) were liable to come back and wreak havoc on the world they had left behind.**
In other words, a day with a potential for all hell to break loose.

But here's the really funny thing: remarkably often, "hell" did break loose on November 8th, give or take a day - at least on the level of visible history.

Many historians seem to agree that the qualification of any given day as religiosus or just plain unlucky (not the same thing) was probably due to some memorable disaster or other momentous event that had occurred on the same date in the past. (It would be more or less like marking September 11th as an "unlucky" day in remembrance of that date in 2001.)

I don't know what that ancient memorable event that marked November 8th and its "shadow" period (November 7th-9th) for posterity in the Roman culture would have been, but I can certainly think of a few momentous events in modern times that happened in the time frame between November 7th and November 9th:


* The "October" revolution of 1917, one of the most defining movements in modern history, started on November 7th, 1917. (October, according to the old Julian calendar used in Russia at the time.)

* The "Kristallnacht" took place on the night of November 9/10th, 1938.

* In a sudden development, the Berlin Wall was taken by storm and virtually annihilated on the night of November 9th, 1989.

(And you can find more if you care to google around.)


Now, all of this could be just a coincidence - of course. That goes without saying.

Do note, however, that they were all perceived as sudden irruptions of concerted force that rocked the very foundations of the established order - as if the energies that had been building in a specific time and place suddenly boiled over, bursting into the visible world as if streamlined through a shortcut channel from the underground to the surface of the World.

And if I add (only in my mind and memory, I am not going to write about it) a few other sudden disruptive - or just odd - events in my personal life that happened to happen on November 8/9th, I can't help but continue to wonder about the arcana of time-keeping - even at its most pedestrian...



* If you believe this quote has anything to do with the post itself, let me know.
I only included it because I like it.

:)


** "The twenty-fourth of August, the fifth of October and the eighth of November were termed dies religiosi. On these days the spirits of the dead (manes) were believed to issue forth into the upper world through the mundus--the name given to a trench or entrance to a vault in the city of Romulus which was believed to be the gate of hell. On these days, again, no public business might be undertaken, no battle fought, no army conscripted. This taboo is ascribable to the taboo on death and corpses." (E. E. Burris, Taboo, magic, spirits: a study of primitive elements in Roman religion, 1931.)
N. B. I am quoting this particular work - instead of many other available recent and classic studies - mainly because it's freely available on the web, so you could read it, in its entirety, right now, if you wish.

Enough with the fluff (1)

Here is an axiom that everyone has heard and many like to use to validate - or even flaunt - the pain they've been through, either real or perceived; to tinge their plight with a glow of would-be heroism - and meaning. (And why not? It's a valid attempt, a struggle noble enough.)

WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU, MAKES YOU STRONGER.

It might.
Sometimes it does.
But quite often the "strength" gained is no such thing: it is just a hardening of the heart, perhaps the loss of illusions, a loss of confidence in other people - sometimes in oneself, too: in oneself as the "lucky" individual one used to be, the one who always seemed to land on the feet.

And sometimes, the depletion of vital resources, the losses sustained are so great that one might as well be dead.

And by the way: the man who uttered these famous words ended his days in an insane asylum.

Before subscribing to any maxim, it's always wise to check the credentials of the one who "said it first".

Flickering flames of memory

In memory of memories.
Of everything loved and lost.

Improbable book(s) of the week (3)

Oh my God... it's a tetralogy!

The 2007-2012 Outlook for Wood Bedroom Chests of Drawers Excluding Custom Furniture Sold at Retail Directly to the Customer in Greater China

IN A NUTSHELL:

This study covers the latent demand outlook for wood bedroom chests of drawers excluding custom furniture sold at retail directly to the customer across the regions of Greater China, including provinces, autonomous regions (Guangxi, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Xizang - Tibet), municipalities (Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Tianjin), special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau), and Taiwan (all hereafter referred to as “regions”).

If you're not particularly interested in China, there's always India:


The 2009-2014 Outlook for Plastics Organizers and Holders for Closets, Drawers, and Shelves Excluding Foam and Wire-Coated Plastics in India


IN A NUTSHELL:

This econometric study covers the latent demand outlook for plastics organizers and holders for closets, drawers, and shelves excluding foam and wire-coated plastics across the states, union territories and cities of India.

But wait - there's more!

The 2007-2012 Outlook for Plastics Organizers and Holders for Closets, Drawers, and Shelves Excluding Foam and Wire-Coated Plastics in Japan


IN A NUTSHELL:

This study covers the latent demand outlook for plastics organizers and holders for closets, drawers, and shelves excluding foam and wire-coated plastics across the prefectures and cities of Japan. Latent demand (in millions of U.S. dollars), or potential industry earnings (P.I.E.) estimates are given across some 1,000 cities in Japan. For each city in question, the percent share the city is of it’s prefecture and of Japan is reported.

(You got three for the price of one - and you dare complain...?!)

:)




N.B. If the author - or a (deservedly, we are sure) appreciative reader - of these works ever happens to read this, please know that we are definitely NOT laughing at the author - or at his work, for that matter.
We are laughing simply because that's what the unexpected - the "improbable" - does to people: it tickles our funny bone. :)

Improbable Book of the Week (2)

The Stray Shopping Carts
of Eastern North America:
A Guide to Field Identification

by JULIAN MONTAGUE

In a nutshell:

"A must-have for anyone with a passion for shopping carts and a love of the great outdoors.

In The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America author Julian Montague has created an elaborate classification system of abandoned shopping carts, accompanied by photographic documentation of actual stray cart sightings. These sightings include bucolically littered locations such as the Niagara River Gorge (where many a cart has been pushed to its untimely death) and mundane settings that look suspiciously like a suburb near you.

Working in the naturalist's tradition, the photographs depict the diversity of the phenomenon and carry a surprising emotional charge; readers inevitably begin to see these carts as human, at times poignant in their abandoned, decrepit state, hilariously incapacitated, or ingeniously co-opted. The result is at once rigorous and absurd, enabling the layperson to identify and classify their own cart spottings based on the situation in which they were found."

Bring out the animal in you

A while ago, I read a question on Yahoo Answers (I know, I know...) that said: "How to become an animal in your next life?"

If karma and reincarnation really exist, then my answer would be: "Make sure you are the best possible human in this life... and maybe, if you're lucky, you get to be upgraded into an animal the next time around."

But in truth... Would you really like being an animal - any animal - in a world dominated by man?
I wouldn't.

For all the shiny "progress" mankind has made through the centuries - for all the real, intellectual and spiritual, progress it has made, that too - humankind still lives with one foot, with one eye, in the stone age. And animals, these noble creatures of God, are the daily martyrs of man's inability to understand any other creature's language but his own (just barely!). They are the scapegoats of mindless brute force that fails - or even refuses - to recognise it own ignorance, or any principle superior to itself.

Personally I dislike attributing "functions" to anyone - and that includes preeminently animals. They need no "functional" justification to abide in this world, hijacked by mankind.
But that doesn't mean we have nothing to learn from them. Far from it. Often, it is them, animals, who remind us that there is real beauty, real nobility, true kindness in the world, if we care to look around, beyond our man-made limits.

There are many, many, many heartwarming animal stories on the web, in books, all around us, if we deign to pay attention to them. The following one happened very recently. You are unlikely to have read about it, and I really think you should.

The star of this story is an old boxer called Tyson - and by boxer I mean a dog.

Tyson and his human family have a neighbour who recently bought a sophisticated security system, with lights and four cameras.

A few days after having installed the system, this neighbour went out to mow the lawn - and he found a sick possum lying in the middle of his backyard.

Possums, sick or not, must be a rare sight on that lawn, because the man decided to review the security tapes of the previous night, to figure out how the animal ended up there.

It turned out the possum had been brought by the neighbour's dog - Tyson, the old boxer - who apparently had found the animal. He is seen on the security tapes carrying the possum around the neighbour's back yard for more than 30 minutes: carefully he lays the animal down, sits down himself and waits for a while; then he gingerly picks the possum again and carries it onto another spot, sits down again - and then repeats the procedure, placing the possum in a different spot.
By doing so, Tyson triggered all the security lights, one after another, until the yard was well lit; then he placed the possum in the middle of the lawn - and left.

And that's not all: according to Tyson's human - you know, the one whom Tyson believes he owns ;) - the old boxer normally consider possums to be his "mortal enemies".

Tyson, the not-so-mean boxer, in 2008.

When I was told this story, a thought crossed my mind: had Tyson perhaps injured the possum himself?
I don't know, I am not familiar with the sort of injury the possum sustained.
I don't even know whether it was an injury; maybe the possum was just sick.
But I do know that, even IF (big "if") that were the case, the dog went out of his way - displaying remarkable intelligence and "strategic" thinking - to ensure the possum got noticed.
And that it did: after the neighbour found the animal, he called the local wildlife protection services. They collected the possum, and it is my understanding the animal is now being rehabilitated.

I am sure there will be people who will object that we don't know what Tyson's "real intentions", if any, were. And in principle that is very true.

Then again, people in general know very little about the roots of their own "intentions" and those of their fellow humans - the problem is, they think they do.
Ignorance is the yardstick, the imperial measure, of man's world.

Just like a pipe sometimes really is just a pipe, an act of kindness really can be just that: an act of kindness.

And if we can't accept the notion of an animal being kind, being humane (!), without any discernible darwinian self-interest driving its behaviour, that speaks volumes - about US.

Bring out the "animal" in you. Not when you're angry, not only when you're lusty, but when you're sad and despondent and lost. Forget what you think you know - and watch the world become alive with wonder and light.

The mute dance of Time

Today marks the anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landing on the shores of the New World.
On that day, that October 12th, the fate of millions - on both sides of the Atlantic - changed its course forever.

In less than an hour, this date itself will detach from the evergreen tree of the NOW and silently join the myriads of fallen leaves that we call history - the history that we know mostly by numbers, figures, ciphers, dried-up characters on paper.
The new day will mark another anniversary: the anniversary of my only brother's birth. It will be, once again, the anniversary of the momentous day that changed my world forever.

Even if you happen to suffer from triskaidekaphobia, this is one thirteenth-of-the-month when it should be safe to breathe easily.
Well, at least as far as astrologers are concerned.
They will tell you - making considerable fuss about it - that Jupiter is turning "direct" on October 13th.
(In case you're wondering: it wasn't "indirect" before - it was retrograde, i.e. moving "backwards". And that, of course, only apparently.)
It's supposed to be a considerable event - and a "good" one, too. In astrology, Jupiter is known as the "great benefactor", the planet that brings good luck and expansion and joy.

I hope it brings all of that - and more - to my brother, M.
May his heart and mind sing and dance to the music of the spheres, open to the light and warmth of genuine love - of everything that is good and beautiful and true.

And may he remember that he has a sister.

And may you who are now reading this remember the warmth, the innocent joy of hope, now long forgotten, that seemed unforgettable at the time.
It was more true than your - or their - forgetfulness ever will be.
It was living; oblivion is not.

Improbable Book of the Week (1)

The 2007-2012 Outlook for Bathroom Toilet Brushes and Holders
in Greater China

The 2007-2012 Outlook for Bathroom Toilet Brushes and Holders in Greater China





IN A NUTSHELL:


This study covers the latent demand outlook for bathroom toilet brushes and holders across the regions of Greater China, including provinces, autonomous regions (Guangxi, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Xizang - Tibet), municipalities (Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Tianjin), special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau), and Taiwan (all hereafter referred to as “regions”).




Who knew...?

Catharsis reviewed

There are films that one should never see twice.

I just saw – against my better judgment – Umberto D.
for the second time in my life.

I shouldn't have done it. And I knew it.

But – ah! – so irresistible was the temptation to touch, if only from afar, from another lifetime, the warm glow of that Sunday afternoon, on a November day almost fifteen years ago, when I first experienced Umberto D., one of Vittorio De Sica's masterpieces, a key work of Italian neorealism.

On that afternoon, I cried so much that my nose and my entire face swelled... but there was such sweet delight in the utter heartbreak.
Do you know the feeling?

My father had just come to my home to resolve what seemed to me – a PC rookie in those days – a major catastrophe. When he left, with a smile on his face (he was happy that I would be able to continue my work – and that HE had been useful), I was just sitting down on the couch, to see Umberto D, the film that was playing on TV that November afternoon which I could see and feel bathed in a soft, amber light.

I was happy and relieved that my PC was alright – after the nerve-wrecking overnight battle with it. And somewhere, in that die-hard nook of my heart, I was also happy to have a daddy who loves me and comes to my rescue when I need him, and will now be returning home, to my lovely mum... and all that on November 1st, when so many others reminisce about happiness (or miseries) past.

As my father left, I plunged into Umberto's Rome, and I cried my eyes out. I think I even missed the final part because my eyes were too swollen to see. And – oh, how I enjoyed it! How bitter-sweet that feeling was!

That was my memory of Umberto D. That is why it held such a special place in my heart. Because of that Sunday afternoon, of amber glow, a November long ago.

I knew I shouldn't have seen it again.
But I just couldn't resist it. I am too weak to resist the call of melancholy and happiness long since vanished.

I saw the film tonight. Reluctantly – but I did see it.
I even enjoyed some of the parts. For the most part, I was appalled at my own faulty memory: there were many, many scenes and characters I didn't remember at all (like the little pregnant servant girl!).

But it was the end – once again – that broke my heart.
Only, this time it wasn't because of Umberto's and the dog's fate.

I was crying for the girl that was able to weep with such utter abandon, with such an open heart, while drawing her bitter-sweet feeling from the comforting shadows of those around me, all those who loved me. Then I wept because I could afford it; because I could indulge in it. Because I was so blessed.

Tonight's tears – very few and easily contained – came out of regret: dry, well-worn regret that I've learned to bear as a second skin, in the past ten years or so.

I knew I wasn't that girl; I knew my life wasn't like it was on that November day.
Why did I watch it?

A single memory – even if distorted (most memories are) – is worth a thousand viewings of the best films. Umberto D - the virgin viewing - had been an untouchable moment in my life.
Why did I need to re-touch it?

To prove to myself that somewhere, in that mysterious realm between everyday life and our nightly fantasies, there still persists a flicker of the Life as it once was?

I will try to erase the second viewing from my memory.
I know I can do it.
Such things come to me quite easily, these days.




Originally published here.
Reproduced by permission.