Sporadic Musings
Page: 1 2 3 4 5
| |
|
|
| |
Friday February 6, 2009>>
A Harem of Cats
I was reading a book in bed while my Rosie was curled tightly a few inches from my shoulder. My Tommy was leaning against my feet and delicately grooming his tender white belly. It then occured to me that owning cats was the closest I'd come to having a personal harem.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
<<Wednesday February 4, 2009>>
Dragon Drops
In ancient China, dragons were revered for their wisdom and erudition. One clever monk realized if he could harvest the intellect of the dragons nesting in the neighboring mountain to proofread and correct his books, his monastery could have the must accurate and valuable library in the world. But dragons were notoriously subtle and capricious, so the difficulty lay motivating the dragons to serve the desires of humans. However the monk discovered dragons were partial to hard candies and to hot and spicy flavorings. The monk created a candy very similar to lemon drops only orange flavored with hints of ginger and sweet chili peppers. The monk called these candy dragon drops and they proved to be a great favorite among the local mountain dragons. So much so that the dragons were happy to edit the monastery's books. And this was the first case of dragon drop editing.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
<<Monday February 2, 2009>>
It's Spring and the birds are going nuts
I walked to the store the other day and the birds were going nuts. Three fluffy brown jobbers were chasing each other in swooping vicious bombarding maneuvers. They zoomed past my head, and without any slowing down, they flew straight through a rhododendron bush. It was startling.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
<<Saturday January 31, 2009>>
A Tear Gas Day
I've been talking about Snow Days, that odd tradition folks outside of California seem to have where they close the schools on account of, how do you say it, Snough? Snow? Snooooh? that white stuff which I'm told doesn't taste at all like mashed potatoes and is actually quite cold.
I've never experienced a Snow Day having grown up in San Francisco Bay area, but like all true Berkeleyians should, I do know what tear gas smells like.
The People Park riots were in May of 1969 and I was in the first grade. It was a warm day with no breeze and the air was heavy and stagnant. Geographically one can say Berkeley is like a shallow bowl but maybe it'd be more accurate to describe it as a dustpan or bacon-fat drainer. Most of Berkeley slopes gently down to the bay so that John Muir Elementary School at the Eastern end of Ashby Avenue is perhaps at 70 feet above sea level while Aquatic Park four miles away at the Western edge of Ashby Avenue is maybe 5 feet (all of it landfill). Berkeley is rimmed by hills which, once they start, rise quite sharply but the densely populated bits of Berkely are nested like a shallow scoop in a flat pie-scoop between the hills and the bay. As it was a warm day, when the national guard descended upon students occupying a half block of fallow weeds, the tear gas slowly wafted and mingled with the heavy May air and spread slowly outward into the residential neighborhoods about a mile in all directions and sat there heavily. It wasn't too bad in the open air but you'd probably prefer to be inside with the windows shut (but drinking a cold vodka tonic with an aspirin chaser as it was too hot and heavy a day for closed windows.) John Muir Elementary School had a rather antiquated air recirculation system. The tear gas drifted into the intakes and was distributed into the enclosed classrooms. In a closed environment the fumes stung our eyes and very shortly the teachers declared "The Hell with it; Tear Gas Day." Thus we all got to leave the school an hour and a half early. There was much chattering and running for joy and a delightful sense of unexpected reprieve. FREEDOM!.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
<<Thursday January 29, 2009>>
??SNOW??? Day
Last musing was about Snow Days and how as a Californian I never had one. In fact, I never became aware of the concept until I saw a Simpsons episode about one.
However, we did have a ??SNOW?? Day once when I was in junior high and that was exciting. One morning Berkeley awoke to find three inches of dry powdery snow on the ground. It was utterly astounding and everyone ran out to their yards and saw it blanketing sidewalks and yards and roofs just like a calendar photograph. By the time I walked to school it was beginning to melt. It was no longer on any roofs and on the sidewalks and streets it was completely evaporated* although on a few shady stretches there were a few muddy slushes covering some of the cement which excited me no end. But there was still an inch or so on peoples lawns and my classmates, usually callow and sallow thirteen year olds, were gleefully laughing and trying to throw snowballs and build snowmen based an some memory of cartoons and books mentioning such things. Even the snotty kids** seemed happy and friendly and I was amazed at the overall friendliness. "They should let us stay home and appreciate it," said one who apparently had hear of a Snow Day. "That's what they do on the east coast when it snows. We're never going to experience this again so they should let us enjoy it." In school we all eagerly awaited the recess between 2nd and 3rd period, but by then all the snow was gone. But the sky was clear and we could see scattered patches over the hill.
After lunch, during 6th period English one boy shouted excitedly "Hey, it's snowing!" and we all ran to the window. Our teacher, a surprisingly obtuse individual resembling a battle-weary Gene Shallit and an attrocious speller for an English teacher, said "Get back to your seats. You've all seen snow before." We all looked at one another in astonishment and wondered who should be the one to state the obvious. I figured I couldn't because four years earlier I had lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a year and I had seen snow before***. But that one winter in New Mexico had been the first time and I hadn't seen it since.
When school was let out, it was snowing in very very light wafts and I noticed the flakes melted instantly as they touched the ground. I realized that although the air had cooled deep enough for snow the muddy ground hadn't and probably wouldn't until late at night. Still kids ran around trying to catch the flakes. One boy in his yard was trying in blind hope and optimism to wave and rake the flakes into a patch on his yard. The snow had stopped by the time I got home but by dinner time it had started up again and it snowed in steady flurries throughout the evening. I watched it from the window while drinking hot chocolate by the fire and feeling very wordly.
There was no snow, either on the ground or in flakes, the next morning but the San Francisco Chronicle had devoted its entire front page to the snow. There was a full page panorama photo of Twin Peaks blanketed and there was only a single headline "SNOW!" in three-inch type I'd only known the Chronicle to use twice before.****
NEXT: A Tear Gas Day--- The Berkeley version of a Snow Day.
* The snow was very light and powdery and evaporated as soon as it melted. Um, light snow does that, doean't it? Just like dew?
** Snotty kids. You knew the type. The bullies would pick on you and actively seek you out, but the snotty kids would just look at you with contempt. Except they could be half-way human some of the time and didn't act mean to you other than sneering. I realize now they sneered and looked at us with contempt as self-preservation so they wouldn't fall prey to bullies themselves, but at the time I hated them worse than the bullies. They didn't have the bullies' brutal hatred so I couldn't understand why they weren't nicer and why they were so scornful.
*** Oddly enough, the first time I had seen snow in Santa Fe the 4th grade teacher also said "Get back to your seats. You've all seen snow before." I looked around hoping someone might point out "Nathaniel hasn't" (I was an exceedingly shy little boy) but no-one did. So I muttered "I haven't" under my breath but no-one heard me.
****"NIXON RESIGNS" and "MAN WALKS ON MOON"
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
<<Tuesday January 27, 2009>>
A Californian's take on Snow Days
NPR's Talk of the Nation had a brief segment about Snow Days and the guest was quite energetic about the ramance and memory of the Snow Day and the overwhelming feeling of FREEDOM a Snow Day gave. He briefly mused about folks from Los Angeles never having Snow Days and wondering if folks from Minnesota ever had Snow Days or were all days it snowed so bad they didn't consider closing schools.
A listener from Florida phoned in and said she never had Snow Days but she had Hurricane Warning Days. She loved the freedom from school and liked to explore the basement and making up stories with her sister. Because the windows would be covered with plywood it'd be dark and there'd be strange shadows and she loved it. She used to look forward to and hope for Hurricane Warning Days.
The guest missed the point of this and said a Snow Day would be different than a Hurricane Warning Day in that a hurricane could destroy your house and would be scary whereas a Snow Day would be nothing but FREEDOM. Never having had a Snow Day, I'm a bit confused. If the snow is heavy enough to close traffic and businesses and schools, isn't it basically a "bad" thing in the long run. Of course, kids are ecstatic to get out of school so there's an overwhelming sense of surprise party fun and FREEDOM but isn't it tempered with the ignored "big picture" of being snowed in and cut off for groceries, hospitals, and roads. Wouldn't the lack of revenue of closed businesses have a bit of a bearing. Not much bearing, of course, as mostly it'd be a surprise stay of execution; I understand that. It'd be much like a teacher's strike lasting until October. (Something I did experience and remember with foundness-- a month and a half extra summer and fall vacation!) But surely one can see how a Hurricane Warning Day would have the same appeal to Florida kid. Sure it could tear your house down but it's EXCITING. And it probably won't tear your house down. For the most part it's a surprise break from the routine and a chance to pull together with your family and neighbors and explore the familiar in a new and fascinating light. But mostly you are pulled from school and afterwards you get to explore the curious and fascinating damage with impunity. In other words, FREEDOM.
NEXT: Not a Snow Day, but a ?SNOW? Day I did experience once.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
<<Sunday January 25, 2009>>
To be a crow ... or maybe a ninja alien with laser beam eyes.
...ooh, that be so cool!!!!
We seem to have a lot more crows around here than we used to have. I think crows are really neat. They seem to be all energy and raucousness wrapped in a tight black bundle with no space to spare for unnecessary niceties such as elegance, grace, or charm. All business; that's the crow.
Crows (and ravens) are, of course, exceedingly intelligent. I could ramble on about the crow as trickster in Native American folklore or as ... well, as whatever they are in celtic and nordic mythologies,... in celtic and nordic mythologies. But researchers in animal behavior are aware of it too. David Quammen in his book Natural Acts had an amusing essay about crows being simply too smart for their own good and so they engage in rugby, teasing other animals, sunbathing, and recreational substance abuse ("anting" or rubbing themselves with mashed ants). (Here is the text of his essay. I'm loathe to include this link as it is not credited, posted without permission, and out of context. In other words, it reflects all that is wrong with the Internet. However, it does have the essay which is too good to ignore.) I had a friend who told me of a rapport she had with a wild crow. At a picnic her associates tried to chase away malingering crows with rocks. My friend separated herself and tossed a piece of hot dog to one of the crows. As the crow gobbled it up it looked her in the eye and my friend gave it a conspiratorial wink. A week later, she took a walk in the park and claims the same crow followed her for miles dropping pebbles and twigs and swooping at any person who got to close to her but allowed her to walk unmolested.
True story? I doubt it. Well, I don't doubt that a crow pestered others on her walk leaving her in peace and I don't doubt that she was enamored of the crow she fed and felt rapport with it. Nor do I doubt a crow could recognize and remember an individual human a week later, although I doubt how often one would. What I doubt is that we can have any idea what the crow(s) in the story were thinking. People have the annoying habit of anthropomorphism in stories. As rationalists, we rightfully reject this and listen to the stories with an air of jaundiced caution. However too often in our filtering of the fanciful and anthropomorphs we offer nothing in return resulting in a dull rationale. This is blatantly unfair to the brilliance of the crow who, no doubt, have their reasons which we shall never know.
Rather than patronizing or condescending my friend's story, I mused that I wish, just once, just a glimpse, that I could know what an animal thinks. To see a mind and its actions for what it is and not translated into an interpretation of an outsider. What does a crow think?
Along with hundreds of thousands, I'm a fan of The Daily Coyote, Shreve Stockton's photo blog of an orphaned coyote she raised and lives with. Recently she was besieged with questions about what she called "the chimpanzee thing". I missed this story but apparently a woman raised a chimpanzee and one day after several years the chimpanzee attacked another woman and had to be shot. So, the besiegers ask, could this happen with Shreve's coyote, Charlie. Shreve responded soundly and thoroughly. (Charlie is a wild coyote and she knows it; Charlie is kept away from, and terrified of, all but the two humans he knows; Shreve is in contact with coyote handlers around the country and there has never been a case of a properly raised coyote turning on people; etc. etc.) But on reading this, I had to ask myself so what if Charlie does attack a human? The implication is that by raising a wild animal we are modifying how he thinks into an incompatible, thus dangerous, mind set, or that we misinterpret his thoughts as benign when in reality they are unfathomable and thus dangerous. But so what? Charlie needed to be raised and so he was. Now he is an adult thinking animal and as such we do not know what he thinks (but, God, what I wouldn't give for just a peek). Whether it is docile adoration of his master and her entire human kind, or whether it is the constant bloodlust of the hunt and the kill, it is there in an alien animal mind. Shreve has responsibility to keep Charlie away from humans (although this is really only a facet of the more inclusive responsibility to keep Charlie in an environment compatible for a coyote) which she does quite well but beyond that Charlie is free to be a coyote with whatever alien motivations and thoughts that may entail.
What it must be to be an alien. Not merely to understand and interpret an alien's behavior but to actually think and feel as one.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
<<Friday January 23, 2009>>
Maybe the last of "Qu up"
Derth of puns results in a lass.
The girl from quip anemia.
--Okay, okay, that one doesn't count but I couldn't resist.
The nursery rhyme boy grows fat off his plum.
Little Jack Horner, squat in a corner.
Indian woman's cremated remains.
Squaw dust.
Global Questions.
World's Queries.
--(*sigh* couldn't get "Querie Canal" to work *sigh*)
What mice do.
Hide and go squeek.
What mice want when you catch them.
Squeek justice.
--(Oh, dang! it's S-Q-U-E-A-K, isn't it?)
Irritation over Gravensteins.
Apple Pique
When a now defunct weekly magazine did a story on a biblical village in the book of Judges, they reported on a dispute over simians. (Okay, this one is really forced.)
Life's Nob quarrel of monkeys.
Can this be the end? Maybe, but probably not.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
<<Wednesday January 21, 2009>>
More Qu Up
Remember, the idea is to add a "qu" to a familiar phrase.
How many make one again?
Que Pluribus Unum?
Carlyle Group industrial company that operates in the aerospace, metal coatings and automotive industries will take to polishing itself.
Sequa to shining sequa.
Performance state of your writing plume.
Quill health.
Costume jewelry as payment.
Sequine Tributary.
Wasting one's waistbands.
Belt squander.
Glow at the burlesque
Risque and shine.
Celeopod savage.
Squid Vicious
Suddenly the dating scene becomes much harder.
Quits raining men.
--This is my favorite of all my "qu up"s.
Send a son into servitude
Squire an heir.
Nope, That's still not all. More coming.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
<<Monday January 19, 2009>>
She's Kate Freakin' Winslet
So, I'm watching the Academy Awards right now and Kate Winslet just won best actress and she's thanking her husband and children for "... accepting me for who I am and letting me do what I want to do".
....well, Duh!.
She's Kate Freakin' Winslet and a successful and financially well-off movie star. Who in the world wouldn't accept that and let it continue?
Addendum: Ah... Now I understand. She was referring to the role for which she won the award. She played a Nazi, a rather unsympathetic and "difficult" role. Hence she thanked her husband and children for supporting her in taking that particularly "risky" role. ... Still, it strikes me as an odd thing to say.
|
|
| |
|
|
|