This is the last evening of 2018 --a year I'm quite content to see the butt of. I know, I was determinedly upbeat throughout this year, but have regained my sanity. Let Roofcat attest:
Unlike his feline relatives, Roofcat does not get cute. Nor does he say much, especially not "babycattalk". Lesson: don't read everything you believe. He sure doesn't, or vice versa, nor do I (or does I?). This has nothing to do with my fiercest accomplishment of the year, I turned 69 years old,
a human sort of age best defined by roofcats: Figure out what the hell you are and do it on purpose. Well, there are only two things I can think of to say about that. 69 is an invertible number. It looks the same as its upsidedown self. I believe 88 is the next one. Then comes 96. I hope to have something more to comment on my eleventyoneth birthday (lll).
But that's just being silly. The future is not only about getting old. Except for the occasional emergency ambulance ride, I feel young as I ever did. The future should make us happy:
We are now exploring interstellar space with Voyager 2. Intelligence is a function of the Universe, which is very big, and we are trying to find where to clamp the jumper cables. There's a serviceable closing sentence here: Time has braced my love of the universe --and certainty of its promise in humanity and nature-- into the most definite thing I know. Not sure about Roofcat but there is no firmer truth in me.
The meaning of the marginally translatable and fascinating Japanese word,
ぼけっと -- boke tto-- delivers a refreshing freedom in both thought and its release from strict ideation. A photo:
Here is the Moon over a trellis in our garden. I stare at the moon a lot. It is not a "blur", which is the short translation of boke tto. Nor is it yet what it will be when the moon blossoms and spreads across the sky:
ぼけっと also means staring into the distance, thinking of nothing in particular. It is how we imagine. We receive no information about the universe smaller than a photon, so it is the fundamental unit of grammar. It builds the language of dreams as well as blog-posts --a bottom-dealt extra sense.
ぼけっと: go outside, look into the distance, think of nothing in particular. There are wonders.
"Hello E(a)rnest, what's up?" "I am upset. I heard Rene Descartes kicked his dog!"
"That was like 500 years ago, Earnest." "Time means very little to me, Geo., except for seasons. We squirrels look at you as you look at tortoises, who live several times your span." "So, how would you know about Descartes, Earnest?" "Instinct." "Wow! I know you feral people have a long, wide knowledge of humans but I never get your limits." "Instinct has no limits, Geo." "Eh?"
"Geo., instinct tells me Decartes' dog was named Monsieur Gratt and was kicked in an experiment to see if he was more than an automaton of instinct -- or could he think?"
"My French is a little rusty, Earnest, but 'Gratt' --short for gratter?-- could mean scratch, scrape, pick, paw or even strum a guitar." "Yes." "So what happened? "Same thing that happened when the starlings thought you weren't looking. They composed a pattern which you doodled from behind this very fence."
"Earnest, this formation, this masterwork of cooperation, was composed without thought?" "Indeed Geo., instinct, unlike mere thought, does not allow for error. Oops!"
"I'll ignore your misstep if you tell what happened with Descartes?" "The dog was really his wife's pet and when she found out --M. Gratt was a Tattler (an inadvisable breed)-- she kicked the merde out of M. Descartes. "So how does it end?" "Well, Geo., Descartes' dog was last seen chasing Shrodinger's Cat down an alley and into a box --which was the start of Quantum Physics."
I was sitting at the kitchen table with Uncle Eyeball, visiting. We don't let him fly inside the house because of presbyopia (click here), an age-related rigidity of the lens caused by upbringing in poorly lit Presbyterian churches.
For those readers unfamiliar with Uncle Eyeball, please click onto this blue area and catch up on my dear relative's adventures. No, I don't remember them all either, but can attest he is consistent with my delight in amusements that, in my advancing maturity, approximate the chewy consistency of doggy toys.
I began the interview with a question that had always been on my mind but I'd never asked: "Dear Uncle Eyeball, from what am I, and all earthly life descended?"
"That's easy,"he said. "You come from my generation of Stromatolites --collected on precambrian rocks in lagoons."
"Good heavens!" I gasped. "You mean we're descended from bacteria?" I dropped him.
"OOPS!" I said.
When he recovered his composure, Uncle Eyeball kindly said, "Don't worry, nephew. My generation is extremely elastic and durable.When I was a schoolboy, there were no history classes because there wasn't any history yet. Language was no less simple --'oops!' comprised the whole of human vocabulary.
"Thanks Uncle, your heart's in the right place."
"Well, the avuncular cardiac chamber is among the longest surviving --wherever it is. Its influence is permanent."
This afternoon, I wrote this on another blog,"Invalid's Workshop", and read it aloud to Norma. She said I should put it on my prose blog instead of a poetry one, so I've copied it here. I should add that Bakasana is a Yoga term for what Earnest is doing in the closing Normaphoto.
Transcript: "Fellow citizens, as a native Californian, I earnestly urge you to vote.
I know, I know, you're out there
thinking,'But he's a squirrel! He's not human!' Well, I ask you: has
that ever stopped any candidate in the past? Has it?"
"Course not! I know my main rivals,
the admirable Gavin Newsom and John H. Cox are human but do they depend
upon ecological stability as much as I do? Ok, I guess they do. All
species' worst fear is starvation, but squirrels now...we squirrels fear
evolution like anything. We love being squirrels and we work for
peanuts --walnuts anyways. No evolution for us, nossir! I'll kick it out
of school curriculum so nobody'll want to do it. What? You don't like
that? Well, I ask you: can the other candidates do a cool handstand like
this?
Ha! Didn't think so. Write me into the ballot, elect me governor and I'll forget it, just like I forget where I buried my nuts."
My Halloween treat was sent to me this year by Daughter in Chicago. It was a very unusual-looking cupcake. Of course I knew I shouldn't eat it before the 31st. Don't know where this photo came from:
On closer inspection, I realize there was an unsuccessful attempt at ingestion which prudence disallowed. Hopefully, that will serve as my confection, I mean confession. The cupcake looked back at me:
Immediately reminded of a collection of favorite cartoons of the 1960s and 70s, I made a long arm at the kitchen reference shelf and retrieved an old number of Jayzey Lynch's "Nard 'n' Pat" --a favorite of the kids when they were little. It was about "the hope of th' world!"
One squeeze, and the enigma was made clear!
Happy Halloween Everybody, and may the hope of th' world strengthen with every poot.
"Gah Wahnut imah mouf!" "So I see, a walnut as big as your head. Need a break?" "Lemme pitidout down dere."
"Sure, but don't forget where it lands" "'K, pitooie!"
"Now, what do you want to talk about, Geo.?"
"Fear, I guess." "What do you fear, Geo.?" "Mortality, like most humans, penury, the clink." "What is 'clink', Geo.?" "A cage, a disgrace, the hoosecow, the pokey." "Explain." "When I gardened in high schools, there were obstacle courses essential to law and equity classes that had to be kept in order. Students were made to scale a 6-foot wall and drag a rag-dummy down decomposed granite tracks to a place where they practiced throwing it into the pokey." "I don't know "pokey", Geo." "Happily, I don't either, E(a)rnest. But I've heard if you're under 7 feet tall you become somebody's 'bitch'." "I thought you humans were far more humane." "I wish we were, E(a)rnest, as do many humans, but despite copious literature advocating rehabilitation and general smartening-up, our greatest minds can suggest nothing more than..." "Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis?" "Precisely, don't abandon your squirrel-ish scolding, your chattering welcome, your openmindedness and trust in instinct." "Geo., you embolden me, but I can't do all that and remember where my nut is." "Base of the stump."
"Oh yes, humans are good at remembering." "Heaven help us, E(a)rnest, we are excruciatingly good at that."
I was out beside the busy road this morning, hauling the trash can and green waste bin back through our gate and up our little lane, when I saw a familiar face doing the same next house over, then a familiar smile. D.W. doesn't live there, but his mother does --I help her when her pump goes flooey. D.W. does everything else. We waved and walked toward each other, met there in the gravel between highway and ditch and asked how each other was.
He was the first kid I met when my family moved to the Vineyard area in 1959. He was 11 and I was 10. The little country school we attended had three grades to a classroom, so we saw each other all the time.
Now we are somewhat older. He takes turns with other relatives to help his mom, so I glimpse him from time to time and had to ask how he was doing.
He said, "Well, I had cancer two years back and open-heart surgery a few months ago."
I replied, "I had heart surgery 12 years ago and cancer over the summer."
"Well Geo.,"he said."We always did things backways around from each other."
"There was always some common ground, D.W. What've you got now?"
"COPD."
"Hey, me too! Got an inhaler? A nebulizer?"
"Yep and yep."
"D.W., I've been repairing a bench out back and have to sit down every ten minutes."
"I been clearing mom's garage and doing the same thing. That's why I have a sit-down desk job now, Geo."
"That's why I retired...couldn't get a desk job."
We looked earnestly and happily at each other, then collided in a hug. Cars whizzed by, busy-busy-busy, while two old men embraced on a country road. All those frantic commuters --I hope such happy hugs are in their futures.
In every small town, there's a town beneath the surface...and another town beneath that, etc. I was told that in a small town, by somebody yelling in a hole. I went to high school in that town a very very long time ago. Here is a photo of the class president giving the valedictorian address at commencement.
Excerpt: "Get out there and eat stuff! Eat it RAW!"
"Rah, rah, rah!" We chorused, and the cheerleaders cheered, "Sis boom bah, eat stuff Rawwww!"
Although I am not accustomed to, or adept in the form of personal essay, this exercise in reminiscing has been helpful --having been troubled with something lately but forget what...oh yes, my memory.
I'll close with an admission. Memory and imagination are facets of the same living jewel. Whether I pulled my Jurassic classmate up from the past or he pulled me down, is a subject still under discussion. To find out which or both of us small-town students were displaced, like principals in a fairytale --forgotten by the world-- consult the American Field Service records under "Temporal Exchange Students (prehistoric file)".
Yes, it is I, Geo., torquing nuts on a new wagon assembled by Norma to bring our groceries in from the gate. Since my illness made shopping trips hard this summer, Norma arranged to have Belair Nob Hill Market drive things to our house. Our old wagon wore out, so we got a new one. I like it but it's all locknuts --life is like that sometimes.
It's still hard for me to exert myself, but I have a compelling message in pain: Nobody is alone. One wishes one could travel into the past and change things for the better, but there's no safe way to do it --except, perhaps, by memory. What we need to do, exerting ourselves --even in pain-- is work presently to repair the future. I learn this from people like Father Kelly. Please listen; you might be astonished at his voice:Father Kelly,"Everybody Hurts"
So, we take up the implements of improvement, adjust them, tighten them down to their jobs and in love, despite discomfort, hold on.
"Eh?" "Over here and up a little." "You're a Privet leaf?" "A Privet leaf and a raindrop. It sprinkled this morning!"
"I don't follow." "Well, leaves convert sunlight into energy --it's how we live. Ordinarily we don't know what's going on around us but in just the right kind of sprinkle, we get a raindrop gathered and the whole world is refracted into our works." "You see images?" "We see all images, everything that transpires." "Everything?"
"Only those activities that concern our observers. We leaves have no individual brains, you see."
"Ok, it's just finished summer here in California. What does it look like where summer persists?"
"Oh, you mean the seaside resorts of our planet! Lots of hot beaches: children at sandcastles, bathing beauties, families at pic-nics and old diseased colonels creeping around in the sun."
"And what of us, leaf, you and me?"
"The farther one walks toward the light, one's shadow grows up the wall --until past the light...well..."
"Then?" "Geo., we get confused thinking about then."
"Sorry, my brain has a mind of its own." "What does your brain tell you now?"
"That we rename Lady Liberty (Fr. Marianne) or Gaia and replace the National anthem with this: (Help me Rhonda--Beach Boys)
"So, which one do you mean, Geo.? Gaia or Marianne?"
"Any division of the two." "Who fired you up to this, Geo.?" "Just a treefrog sitting on a fountain spout." "Geo., you've had a hard summer. Maybe you should go lie down now." "Okey Dokey!"
Here is a Normaphoto of me working with a horse-shoe pillow and an ice-pack several days ago, trying to get my neck reduced to normal contours. It is my own post-surgery exercise after undergoing a routine decapitation --during which my head came off, rolled down the hospital hall and escaped onto Broadway. It was returned by a middle school soccer team that was practicing in its path.
Human cells are programmed to put themselves together in certain ways. When that directive is confounded, terrible things happen and that was what was wrong with me. Correcting it is science and magic --and knowing where to look for it. That's all I know right now. This week I'll know more. We're all in this together. Ora pro nobis.
Darwin Doorbooger patrols the index of time, event horizon and memory along the pumphouse door sill and sidereal mentation. I rely on him a lot and am glad I didn't mash him years ago.
During a 1948 speech by Harry Truman in Bremerton, Washington, a supporter famously yelled, "Give 'em hell, Harry!"
Four years later, my father recounted the quote at the supper table and I was enthralled. I asked, "Daddy, what did Hairy say?"
"Hmmm. Something like, 'that's what I'm going to do'."
"And he got to be President, right?"
"Yes, son. Still is. President Harry Truman."
"Don't he have a middle name?"
" Just 'S."
I was pitched into deep thought, even for a pre-literate child. Hairy Ass Truman? Sounded to me like one dangerously tough guy --if his parents named him Hairy Ass...
But Darwin Doorbooger gently interrupted. "Geo., I just turned around and looked at the padlock. It's a long crawl down and, happily for you, this doorway isn't getting any shorter. Oh yeah, and neither one of us is a toad, ok?"
Then Eisenhower got elected. Hey, Darwin, slow down! Hold it, rest a moment. Timeline's going too fast.
"Aw, ok."
"Ok, Darwin, hold still. We're in the 1950s now and have a new president. When Truman presided, I couldn't read. Then, Ike came in and, like magic, I could --and write too! I still like Ike and am forever grateful."
"Yeah, yeah. Let's move on to the weird stuff, Geo. On to the 60s when Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty started cross-dressing and waging 'undeclared wars' and piloting international belligerence."
"Dear Readers, Youtube changed all the stuff you have to do to put a clip on Blogger, overnight. It took me a whole bottle of pinot noir and ALL my native savvy to untangle their improvement. I went to Youtube, found Roger and did all the usual things. Didn't work. However, if you find yourself in a similar position, take heed of the Blogger icon on their "share" bit. Hit that and you'll make progress. I forget a lot of what I did and all of what I said but believe success was mine. We'll know for sure when I hit "publish".
Darwin got tired of waiting and hopped off to eat bugs.
[Please excuse accidental publishing of this post earlier this afternoon with only a couple sentences completed. I'm still in recuperation mode and doped to the gills. Wheee! Sorry, that just slipped out.] I found the time traveler at my own kitchen table. He didn't look well. I asked, "What's wrong?"
TT: I've been ill lately, recuperating on a diet of vegetables, mainly. Geo.: So I see. What sort of illness? TT: Oh, the kind timetravelers get when they stop any where or any when and try to settle down. Geo.: How long have you been traveling? TT: 68 years, all forward. Geo.: No Backward? TT: Oooh I wish. You need superluminal speed to send anything back in time and I'm just not up to it. Geo.: What about positrons? TT: Antiparticles of electrons? Geo: Or electrons going back in time. I've never heard a firm answer. Both descriptions work in physical calculations. TT: Explain. Geo.: We send electrons as modulated electromagnetic waves into the future all the time --radio, tv etc. Why not generate positrons, modulate their wavelength and send them into the past? TT: Because, in the grace and cruelty of time, there are some things we're not meant to do. Geo: That's absurd, we could repair so much past damage! TT: Typical thought of a backwoods hick! What was your zip code in your home town, Geo.? Geo.: Uh, e-i-e-i-o. TT: And what is your current occupation? Geo.: Teaching applied hornet-dodging at our south door. TT: And what are your most ancient ancestors? Geo.: Fossil remains on primordial plains. TT: And if you could send a message to them --perhaps to improve their hygiene. What would that be? Geo.: Uh, lavatories? TT: These are people who have only mineral content now. If you were similarly fossilized, what would you expel in a lavatory? Geo.: Lava! TT: Excuse me, I must be vegetating on now.
It's been a rough summer. I'm home though, sitting up and walking around but anything sustained tires me, puts me back in bed. So this little post will be about quotes. I wanted to quote the Traveling Wilburys ["I still have some love to give"] but decided Roy Orbison's supernaturally beautiful voice should be heard --hence clip. Truely, much of the song applies right now. Please enjoy it.
There is another point, somewhat deliriously apposite, that involves the pitfall of inaccurate quotation. We should always make sure we get the spelling right and do justice to another's thought. This morning's Cryptoquote at THREADBENDER was from excellent writer, Amy Tan: "You see what power is --holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them."
Today I was waiting outside the surgical hospital building of the UCD Medical Plaza. I was to be screened for my 3rd surgery this summer. Don't I look little? Actually I am 5' 11'' and have not lost an ounce since I was a teenager. The cause of my diminutive appearance is the comforting presence beside me.
It was provided by local ceramicist, Ruth Rippon. It made me feel like I was a kid sitting next to my mother nearly 60 years ago, waiting to see the doctor when I had pneumonia --comforting, larger than I, quiet and encouraging. I understood why Ruth Rippon --who I remember from school days-- made her statue, entitled "Waiting", somewhat larger than lifesized. It was for worried old boys like me. Ruth is in her 90s now and I hope she goes on forever.
Turkey is a republic straddling eastern Europe and western Asia. Its
cultural links to Greek, Persian, Roman, Byzantine and
Ottoman empires mark it as a civilized country. Its multifaceted history is easily found elsewhere, but this post deals with wild turkeys. Lookie:
Mom and adolescent kid turkey are off on a field trip. All young wild turkeys are home-schooled. She is going to show him something enigmatic. They cannot ride the Trainrideoftheenigmas because they would be forced to board as "livestock". I do not like boarding trains as livestock, why should they?
And where are they going?
Mom instructs, "Jump and flap until you gain the top fence rail."
"Wow Mom, I didn't even know we could do that! Flap-flap-up-up!"
"We turkeys call it kaboingulating. Now..."
"...Kaboingulate down onto that stump below." "Okeydoke."
"What do you see?" "Nothing unusual, Mom. What should I be seeing?" "Turn around. Turn your head around too!"
"My what, Mom?" "The little thinky thing on top of you." "Oh! Oh my!"
"What's this?"
"It's a statue of birds, Son, built by humans to show how much they love us."
"They love us?"
"Some of them do, Son, like the pretty lady taking photos of you, but there are many more humans who are very dangerous."
"Like how, Mom?"
"Like in November especially, they're insulting and disrespectful." "How so?" "Well, we turkeys have an old saying, 'Beware of Humans! They'll chop your head off and throw it in your face!"
"Yikes, I don't want to end up like that. Run Mom!"
I should begin by dedicating this post to my dear friend, Willie, who visited this town over the weekend and continued our 49-year-long conversation about what can and cannot be known and beer:
Having previously dealt with the subject of How To Know Everything, I thought it apposite to discuss methods for knowing everything else. It is probably kindest to begin by saying there are no fixed methods in philosophy for knowing everything else short of a complete survey of the entire universe, but we can derive some oblique inferences from everyday life and art. For our purpose, music will suffice.
First, let's examine the ancient Greek noun, odeion, which means "roofed theater." Thousands of years later, the etymology and meaning remained intact, even with the advent of Nickelodeons, theaters that could be entered for a five-cent fee. Then came Teresa Brewer, who confounded that solid definition with jukeboxes and orchestrions --coin-operated music machines. What was known became something else, but no one minded because the song was really fun and the singer, cute as a button. One cannot argue successfully with fun and cute-as-a-button because the combination is philosophically unimpeachable. Observe:
{clip of Teresa Brewer singing "Music Music Music"}
Odeion is sometimes confused with the Latin word, odium, which is an ancient Roman mechanism into which one could drop a coin and really really hate. It was quite the rage until rage went out of vogue and gum machines were hurriedly invented.
This brings us to our second gnostic insurrection, Charles Wright and The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. "Express Yourself" is a personal and family favorite. When it played on the radio in the '70s, our little ones would dance and join its exuberant refrain (from L. refringere =to repeat) as they interpreted it, "Sprash yourself!" Norma and I would tell them the singer was encouraging them to express themselves and they would assure us they understood, then go back to dancing and yelling "sprash!" They are great big men now and happy in their arts. We are glad Mr. Wright came along and owe him bigtime.
[clip of Charles Wright performing "Express Yourself"]
Expressing yourself is not a knowable enterprise. Society may balk, it may not understand. It didn't understand Einstein for a long time. Einstein said, "I don't need to know everything, I just need to know where I can find it when I need it." And we cannot neglect the go-to authority upon whom we relied so heavily while raising our offspring, Doctor Benjamin Spock --a surprisingly compassionate man for a Vulcan: "You know more than you think you do." In conclusion, it would appear the key to knowing everything else is to simply have fun doing it.
One thing I have learned from my pen-pal, Jon,is if I lose confidence in myself, I have set the whole universe against me: "And life without confidence will completely destroy you" --Jon(Click here)
And Jon is absolutely right (he's most always right, darn it).
Havelock Ellis wrote, "The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum." So I have got back onto the train. I don't know if there's a difference yet.
I do know that moving along --in time and space-- requires one to think rationally despite what medical science pumps into one. We are all of us time machines. We navigate a grand continuum and must be sane --medicine can help, but we must all beware of political bloviation --noble words that conceal an insult to humankind, all ethnicities, all faiths and phenotypes.
We must all be aware of what the necessarily entropic mechanisms of time and space throw at us --accidents, illnesses, erosion of confidence. These are unavoidable products of time-travel.
For example, we had a perfectly awful civil war in this country --my relatives fought on both sides of it-- and I hardly think we need another one. However, there are those who have abandoned government by discussion and think we do.
I realize I don't usually rant, and must apologize, but I'm newly growing old, and not used to seeing myself disappear inch by inch --it is too cruel (don't try this at home). I will hold onto our memories, love and liberty as long as I can.
A moving dot on the pumphouse wall lured me into audience. I didn't have my glasses on. "What're you?" I asked.
"I am a mighty Triceratops," was the reply.
"Excuse me but there seems to be some inconsistency."
"Really? Where?"
"Well, you've obviously just emerged from your pollywog stage, as your legs have not quite completed transition from a tail. And, if you don't mind my noticing, gravity means nothing to you and you're only a quarter-inch long."
He replied, "Yet, we are talking together."
"I've had a similar, somewhat mystical, experience before."
"Yes, like AAA, LBJ, DDT, STD --it's a bit of your brain inscribed with initials."
"I don't think my automobile clubis sexually transmitted."
"Ok," he responded. "I'll ask some hard questions and see if you're worth mindreading."
"Shoot." I said.
"How many stars are in the solar system? Has the sport of skiing gone downhill? Has the perfect hiding place ever been found?"
"What?" I cried. He continued. "Is the family tree ever trotted out when the dogs are using it? Would you consider pheasants prone to hysteria if you suddenly found out your mother could fly? Do you love all creatures great and small because you're a bad shot and there's nothing else to do?"
"Well, now you're just getting silly. You're a treefrog. Live, and enjoy your life without reading minds of those unfortunate enough to have them."
"Ok, what should I think, now that I have briefly experienced thought?"
"Only this on your way to triceratopsism: I look forward to tomorrow because I get better-looking every day."
"Okeydokey!"
"That's what I do," I called as he hopped out of sight.
Backyard Buddha began as BackseatBuddha two years ago. I hope you click and visit that title --a fun post to write.
(above is a photo of when Norma and Christina drove Buddha home)
But times have changed and, although our new friend liked the living room very much, he longed for a closeness with the world that television couldn't furnish. We understood --that has to come from within.
