A True Physic, for when misery follows you like a hat.

Many years ago I found this under my windshield wiper. Mrs. Della must have known that someday I would have a blog, and would be looking for something light-hearted to post towards the end of the year. When I found this, I was in graduate school; my dissertation advisor was so tickled by the idea of a true physic that he sputtered his coffee into his beard. Then he taught me how to read palms and Tarot cards. I never did call her.

Remember to wear your shapow, because it's cold out there.

Thanatos, du Donnerwort

 

Boots on the ground carrying machine guns, at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, France, during an exhibition of Manet's work.

Recently my husband and I rented Amour, a beautiful and pitiless movie about being trapped by love when one person in a marriage develops Alzheimer’s. If you have not yet seen this film, I will say only that no one walks out, yet someone is abandoned. I don’t think I am giving anything away when I mention that, finally, the intact spouse suffocates his wife with a pillow. Very difficult to watch; I think I forgot to blink. It got me thinking about other pillow suffocations that have been presented to me, for instance, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. More recently, though, on The Blacklist, the urbane and infinitely calculating character played by James Spader suffocates the heroine’s father with, yes, a pillow. Then, tears in his eyes, he kisses the dead man on his forehead. The suffocated person is always a patient, has always asked to be killed if they arrive at that miserable level, is always embraced by their merciful murderer. There is, however, something about seeing it on television—network television!—that stops me in my tracks. We are willing to show all kinds of death on television, gory and traceless, kind and vicious, needful and gratuitous; now that anything and everything can be recorded, these scenes are available to children. However, the notion of there being some dignity or necessity in two people having sex, that these might not be wearing any clothes, that it means something powerful to them emotionally—that is considered something that children should not see. Doesn’t have to be explicit, or pornographic. (We have the Internet for that.) Just saying that there are many more incidents of adults being murderous and of it being deemed necessary than of any dignity or rightness attaching to adults being sexual. Yet again, Freud was right: Death wins out over Love.

This frightens (and fascinates) me

 

The real world is more frightening than anything you might make up. For instance, global climate changes are altering the ocean such that the number--or should I say amount?--of jellyfish is increasing hugely. They make beaches dangerous for swimmers, clog the intake valves of any machinery, consume the food supplies of species we desire. Some of them pretty much cannot be killed, as bits of them can grow into new jellyfish. They can fertilize themselves, they can go dormant for 100 years, and warming conditions just keep making the environment ever more jellyfish-friendly. They are spooky beautiful, and look like clouds of invasion. That's a nightmare to me.

All photos were taken at the Jellies exhibit of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It's a fabulous display of jellyfish, but I must complain about the dorky psychedelic/funkadelic presentation. Loud funky music, and even funky breaks down when it is repeated too many times; groovy op-art patterns and colors. If I had done drugs in the sixties, I might have thought I was having a flashback.

Overheard: Why it is a good idea to go out to lunch

 

 

From the department of things you simply cannot make up:  we were having lunch in a very conventional restaurant in our town. Delicate stomachs, long story, not relevant. Anyhow, I truly could not help but overhear the story one middle-aged woman was telling her companion, an older woman. I couldn't help overhearing because the speaker was LOUD. This is what she said, verbatim, no interpolations or omissions I promise:

"This cleaning product is all natural. It kills bacteria, but you can drink it. I do. This is the company that Richard was looking into. A pharma company went into his computer and deleted the file--so unscrupulous. She [no idea] is disgusting, despicable. Richard's business partner killed him. It was a mess. The FBI got involved. He was embezzling our money and everything. Organized crime. Richard lost it all--all his hair too. He started early.

"Richard's sister's husband's brother was murdered. He got into it with a homeless woman. She came back with five friends and they stoned him to death. They were on meth, pinned down his legs with a boulder. Richard gave him a beautiful service. [vigorously and with gestures, imitating Richard, I suppose] 'As he was dying, Sataaan went to pull him down, but Jesus flew in and snatched him up--and I know your brother sits in Heaven this day.'"

Finally photos again!

My sweet old cat asserting her rights to supervise me as I write. So glad to be able to upload photos again.

The Translator is a Traitor

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pieplate/5391787797/in/set-72157625915342290

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pieplate/2581308511/in/set-72157625121163140

(Still can't upload photos, so here are links.)

Lately I've been wanting to translate Heine. Not the poems that anyone is interested in, which is to say, that someone might like to publish. Just ones that suggest translating to me, like "Ich rief den Teufel, und er kam". I used to have a knack for finding the convincing equivalent phrase, but I am finding that I have less room to maneuver. Shoot, I used to try to match roots so that the subliminal imagery would carry over.

This is the image that comes to me:  say that a poem is a footbridge across a chasm carved by a river. When you walk out to the center, you can look upstream and downstream and enjoy the views. A translation is another footbridge, set close to the first one. You'll start out and end up close to where the first bridge does. Your views up- and downstream will be similar, but they won't be identical, and one of them will include the other bridge.

I love science!

I would have loved this even more if Blogger had permitted me to upload some of my many photos of cups of hot chocolate. I'll have to be satisfied with posting some flickr URLs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86806049@N00/3726185721/in/photolist-6FgFcp-78MJ2n-88ym4E

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86806049@N00/181901294/in/photolist-h5hVd-PCcGV-5iQMA7-5iQNhG-5iQNNW-5sf75p-6FgFcp-78MJ2n-88ym4E

...and, finally:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86806049@N00/538938721/in/photolist-PCcGV-5iQMA7-5iQNhG-5iQNNW-5sf75p-6FgFcp-78MJ2n-88ym4E

"Researchers at Harvard have conducted another study endorsing the benefits of chocolate. In a study of people over 65 with impaired blood flow, it was found that drinking two cups of hot chocolate a day for 30 days increased their scores on memory and thinking skills tests." Whatever it takes!

This one isn't hot, but who cares?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/86806049@N00/4026277487/in/photolist-78MJ2n-88ym4E