Monty Python: On Creativity

Heard on NPR or Fun With Insects

I was listening to NPR last week and a segment came on reporting potential progress in developing a new mosquito repellent. DEET, which has been the gold standard since World War II, is relatively expensive for extensive use in developing countries. While seemingly benign when absorbed into human skin, it does eat through plastic. Scientists have been working to find a cheap yet effective alternative and it seems they may have stumbled on an important finding.

What got my attention was one of the scientists while describing the experiments nonchalantly mentions that they luckily had access to genetically altered fruit flies whose antenna will glow green when they sense DEET. So, they reasoned-let's expose these flies to a wide array of substances. If their antenna react, then perhaps this is a potential mosquito repellent. Turns out extracts of plum, orange and jasmine did the trick. Cheap and pleasant smelling. Such a deal!

NOW WAIT JUST A MINUTE!! GENETICALLY ALTERED FRUIT FLIES???

How the hell did anyone figure out that fruit fly antennae would glow to begin with, no less glow when exposed to DEET? Who is doing this stuff?? Who funded it?? What kind of Frankenflies were created when the experiments...ah... well...didn't turn out as planned?? And what is PETA gonna say about this??

On one hand, fascinating. On the other, it just boggles the mind.

2 Guys Talkin'

B-Crazy apes, crazy crazy apes. 
 

J-You read, huh?

B-Your species never fails to astonish. The adage about cats and curiosity should really apply to apes. Our curiosity is merely patrolling with the desire to uphold our personal security. You idiots make atomic weapons.

J-Those were developed for the same reason: security.

B-That's not my point and you know it-your curiosity could end up killing us all. If it ain't messing up the climate or poisoning everything, it will be some stupid- we did it cuz we can and we had funding-experiment that has unintended consequences. You guys are really good at creating OOOPPS situations.

J-Geez you're in a filthy mood. Calico giving you extra grief?

B-I'm just grumpy.

J-I noticed you have been finicky about your food.

B-I'm bored with it.

J-Hmm general malaise?
 

B-I haven't killed anything in a while.

J-Wait. You're feeling bad because you haven't murdered anything recently?

B-We don't murder-we hunt. It's what we do. Your Bambi killers aren't referred to murderers are they?

J-Well, depends on who you ask...

B-Don't get me started on the animal rights people. “Oh kitty cats are wiping out whole species of fucking sparrows, oh the tragedy, oh the humanity”. They're SPARROWS!

J-We don't mind the mice being decimated. Just wish they would be dead when you guys bring them in.

B-Well-that's HRH who is doing that. That tub of lard is deceptively quick. She gets quite a kick out of wiping the grins off those doomed rodents who point and laugh at her.

J-Now that is unkind to the Mollster-she is a chunky breed.

B-Chunky, my furry black ass. That girl is BIG. We all heard the vet. She should be going to Weight Watchers.

J-Back to you-what seems to be the problem? You having a bad patch?

B-Mice,moles, birds,chippers, insects -they have been the luckiest sons-of-bitches on the planet, I swear. Worse, the Calico has been snickering. I've had just about enough of her brand of bullshit.

J-Now, let's not have another spate of fighting. You know how that upsets Mom.

B-I know, but I don't like being humiliated.

J-You seem to still be in pretty good shape for an older gent-you still have your moves.

Maybe you're just trying too hard. Give it a break. Stop obsessing. Relax. It's like riding a bike-it will come back.

B-Any other cliches you'd like to trot out?

J-Boy, you just want to wallow. Ok. How about a scritch.

B-Naa.

J-Oh c'mon. It will make you feel better. How about there?

B-Meh.

J-How about a snack?

B-Meh. I'm gonna take a nap. I'm feeling old. Mom called me “grizzled”.

J-Well, she was referring to both of us and she meant it as a term of endearment.

You were drooling and getting a tummy rub at the time. Now, you are upset?

B-Meh.

J-Ohhhhhhhhhh

B-What?

J-I know what's going on. I wondered who knocked that book down. You've been reading Yeats.

B-No I haven't.

J-Yeah you have. You get into these moods when you read Yeats. And you holler at me for listening to Tom Waits. You're just as bad.

B-It's fall, I'm feeling my age, the world is a mess and I can't hunt anymore. No country for old men.

J-Sigh. Can't argue with you there, buddy. Things suck sometimes. But, they get better. The world keeps turning, keeps running around the sun. It's life and it could be so much worse. We could be living in Somalia.

B-I know-the hell of having First World problems.

J-C'mon, how about a tooth treat before you nap?
 

B-You mean those things that look like wine corks?

J-Yep-crunchy-supposed to help ward off gum disease.

B-What the hell do you think those bony sparrows are for? Of course, I wouldn't know because I haven't killed one in weeks so sure, let's by all means have a tooth treat since I am incapable of getting a natural one anymore and while we're at it, let's get out the pate since I cannot feed myself anymore and here, get a leash and take me for walksies like a fucking dog because I can't take a shit anymore unsupervised and while you are at it, just shoot me and put me out of my misery. I'm ready for the next life.

J-Are you DONE? Gawd,nothing worse than a sulking cat. What the hell, man? Why don't you go take a nap for crying out loud.

B-I just will.

J-You do that.

B-I will if I can get this fucking door open but of course I can't because those bastards took out my front claws.

J-Here you go. Have a nice day.

B-Fuck you.

J-Sour puss

B-Asshole

J-Tooth treat?

B-

B-

B-

J-My final offer.

B-Sure.

Yeats: Sailing to Byzantium

 I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Home from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Tomi

My beautiful Calico Girl. Her given name is Thomasina, in reference to one of C's favorite films from childhood. Tomi was C's first cat in Paris. I shortened her name to Tomi as it fit her personality: if human, she would be a spoiled girl from a bourgeois Paris family, working as a model. She sashays around swinging her hips as the models do on, well, the cat walk during fashion shows.

She freaked out the most during the move from Paris to East Lansing. She hid most of the day in her secure castle in the basement of our duplex coming out when I was asleep in the bedroom. Only then she would come up to visit C who was up late working in her study. In the morning, if she happened to fall asleep on the couch, hearing me flush the toilet would send her frantically scurrying down to the safety of her castle. Eventually, she got to know me but when we moved to our house, she repeated her behavior: downstairs in her castle, on the highest level of some shelving. Finally, I discovered her weak spot: ham. And ever since, she is my hammy-girl. Working with it at the kitchen counter will bring her from most anywhere in the house, twining around my legs, tailing me with intent, with little meowrs of anticipation. She is Daddy's girl.

Tomi is not a lap cat. C can count on one hand the times she has jumped up in her lap. She does not like to be picked up. She enjoys petting and will emit a loud, rumbling purr when one does so. 

As readers of this blog know, she is the bane of Bindiwan's existence. She despises his presence and constantly is mean to him. She is a lurker, ready to put a fist to his grill as he comes around a corner. Or will crouch down and feint a charge just to mess with him. She is, a mean girl.

There's nothing under this carpet. You're seeing things.

Like the rest, she is a hunter. Her prey of choice are birds although she is comically, unsuccessfully. We'll be eating dinner on the deck watching our version of Wild Kingdom unfold in front of us. They all go back to the grasslands of the Seringeti in their heads when they go into their hunt mode. Occasionally, she will go after mice but unfortunately more often than not, will not kill them outright. We always know when they are bringing in a kill through the portal: them give out what C calls a croon. Which we understand-yes, proud mighty hunter has proved herself again except when she opens her mouth, the mouse, albeit stunned from the swift paw to the head, explodes out her mouth into our house. At this point, she and the others are worthless and things pretty much unfold as seen by Tomi:

What fun! See Mom and Dad run all over the house chasing the mousey! Hear Dad say bad words! See Mom get upset with Dad because he is saying bad words! Oooo what’s that where the couch used to be? Oh, a corn chip-a treat? Why are Mom and Dad yelling at ME??? I’m not in the way! I’m hungry. They never feed me. They are so cruel.

Ten minutes later if we are lucky and the damn mouse hasn't run under the piano, Mr. Mouse has been deposited in the back 40, and we're putting the furniture back. Our crew? Oh, they are asleep or washing or hollering for pate. 

Mo' Music

                                         Neo-psychedelia from the Tame Impalas.