As folks are returning back to work, back to the office or considering a change is needed in these pandemic times,a wry view of work and our culture. Check out the background content-worth pausing because there are gems/minute.
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Monday, August 30, 2021
"41" MOVIE
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2319739/
A low budget, no frills, no CGI tale about time travel that is worth viewing. Classic conundrum posed by sci-fi in the modern era: how do you influence a future outcome by visiting the past?
Available on Prime and YouTube. Enjoy.
THE ASTOUNDING TALE OF BIRCH INTELLIGENCE
One hot afternoon, C and I were lazing in the pool. C, studying a nearby birch, came up with a curious concept. How cool it would be, she said, if the horizontal, parallel dark lines on the birch trunk were actually lines of type. "Well they are, darling", I replied and related an article I read in a chronicle that Bin had introduced to me.
This chronicle, the Empheris Felidae, was written by a mysterious man in New York City named Malichi. While mainly a record of feline history and their impact on humans, there are also bits of esoterica concerning other species. It is here that I read an astonishing article about birches and their ability to write.
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| A birch trunk |
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| A closer view showing the lines |
In 1894, Swedish botanist Per Karl Hjalmar Dusén (1855-1926) was investigating a new and devastating disease that was decimating the birch population in the northern areas of Scandinavia and Russia. One day he was looking at a piece of bark under his new and quite powerful microscope. He was astounded to see within the dark horizontal lines, what looked to be string of symbols. Unable to further magnify with his microscope, Dusen went to the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm who possessed the most powerful instrument in the country. What he saw was mind-blowing:
His initial piece was translated and it was a piece of poetry. "An ode to the sun" Professor Nilsson said smiling. "Where did you find this? Runes from this period have never shown this level of sophistication." "Let's go for a drink," replied Dusen "I have a tale to tell you."
That meeting at the bar resulted in a partnership of study and in a matter of months they had collected translations of hundreds of runes with staggering revelations:
-there was a wide range of topics: some creative like the initial piece brought in by Dusen, manuals for living-techniques for weathering the climate, diseases, historical records.
-they found that some trees in a clump wrote on a similar topic, others were individualistic.
Two other avenues of investigation explored how their ancestors found, learned and used the rune and much more perplexing and theoretical: what was the purpose of the runes and did other species "read" them?
Dusen and Nilsson were so excited and focused on their discoveries that they hadn't considered that there might be a downside to their work or the need for secrecy. This was pure research and little thought was given to controlling information flowing out to the public. The press had picked up the story and generally treated it as an amusing example of outlandish fairy tales from silly academics. The Church, however, was deeply alarmed. The concept of such high intelligence from a non-human species threatened one of the cornerstones of the Christian narrative: the primacy of Man over all other creatures. Worries arose that tree worshipping cults would spring up and draw away the faithful. Church elders did not care to tolerate a rival to their unquestioned power and authority they enjoyed. In November 1896, the regional leaders of all main Christian sects met secretly in Copenhagen. A wide-ranging campaign of suppression and repudiation was developed to stamp out the ideas and research as well as crushing the reputation of Dusen and Nilsson. Church elders called upon their friends in government to apply additional pressure on the two men.
Malichi ends this narrative that his research found typical in human history: the Birch rune discovery was suppressed and the findings destroyed. A smear campaign to discredit both men was pursued with vigor. Dusen became an alcoholic and institutionalized for dipsomania. Professor Nilsson eventually committed suicide. Over the years most of their assistants died prematurely often under mysterious circumstances.
What does this all mean? One of the central ideas put forth by in the Empheris Felidae, is that all living creatures other than human can communicate with other species. Bin referred to this as "a really bad evolutionary joke." This odd deficit in humans, cats assert, as well as our arrogance and hubris, is one of the major sources of conflict and destruction on the planet. By enabling and aiding Malichi to document such concepts was an attempt by some in the feline community to help educate our species with the hope of modifying our behavior.
Scientists are slowly researching inter-species communication. I came across this article in the NYT about trees communicating via an underground network facilitated by fungi.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/02/magazine/tree-communication-mycorrhiza.html
There is discussion of Indigenous myths that speak of forests communicating underground and the idea that "all things are connected." However, one mystery stands uninvestigated: how did humans learn of this communication or are the myths an example of campfire storytelling?
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
MODERN PARABLE: A MAN GETS A WARNING
He especially enjoyed the wildlife that visited his garden, surprised by the variety of species even though they lived in the suburbs. He delighted with all the birds who visited his feeder that he had hung from a birch branch. Today, as he ate he watched sparrows, finches, cardinals and chickadees fly back and forth from the shrubs to the feeder. He became aware of a woodpecker tapping on the birch. There were a pair of Downys who often visited. He liked with their flashy black and white markings and the red spotch on the head. He was thinking about nothing in particular when something began to reach his sub-conscious. He had served in the Army during WWII as a radio operator and he began to perceive a pattern to the bird's tapping. Rather than the usual tap tap tap, there was a long string that repeated. He suddenly realized what he was hearing: it was Morse Code. He got up and ran into the house for pen and paper. The woodpecker was still there when he returned and the pattern continued. He wrote down the message: YOU WILL DIE IN 7 DAYS.
My God he thought. What on earth is this? He had had incidents of cognitive difficulties in the past few years, something his children worried about especially with him living alone. Aware, he routinely did a series of mental checks on days where things seemed a bit off. But this, was way off the charts. Well, he thought, I haven't drunk anything today. Nothing odd with his food that might have affected his mind. I don't seem to be suffering from any visual hallucinations. Perhaps it's simply an auditory one. He was gazing with mind racing, at the woodpecker. The bird stopped tapping for a moment and making eye contact with the man, cocked his head in that avian way and flew off. It was the last the man saw of him.
The man slept ok that night but in the morning certain worries began to intrude into his mind. He couldn't simply write this incident off as some weird aberration. He sat at his kitchen table barely drinking his coffee. What if this is true he asked himself. Do I only have 6 days left?
He always prided himself as a man of action. Assess the problem, come up with solutions and git er done. Well, he thought, I might as well hedge my bets and make sure my affairs are in order. They are but let's double check.
The next couple of days he went over his will (no changes), made a long list for his executor and children concerning where all the bank accounts were, making sure the institutions had the correct beneficiary information on file and things of that nature. He called up old friends and out of town children for a chat, not a goodbye (how could he explain all this?) and visited those who lived nearby. Oddly, he did not feel anxious or sad or depressed, he felt calm. Driving around town, he had a good chuckle remembering the Samuel Johnson quote about the mind wonderfully concentrating with the expectancy of imminent death. How true that was! Colors were brighter, food was delicious, wine supurb, women were all gorgeous, his favorite music took on special meaning. It was all soon to end.
For the evening of his foretold last day, he made special plans. Supper was his favorite pizza accompanied by a fine red wine. Cool jazz on the spinner. After supper, he fondly, without tears,went through a couple of photograph albums. I've had a good life he thought. It's ok. Either I wake up in the morning or I don't. He opened another bottle of wine and settled down on the couch to watch some favorite TV shows and fell asleep.
He woke up early. At first, a bit muzzy from all the wine he had drunk, things were not very clear. Only after stumbling into the bathroom to take a whiz did it occur to him: he was still alive. He dressed, turned on the coffee maker and walked around the house. Nothing had changed that he could see. It was just getting light outside with a bit of fog forming over the vacant lots in back of his property. He grabbed a cup of coffee and went outside. He was glad to have put on a sweatshirt as it was cool. Steam rose from his coffee as he put it to his lips, gazing out at the fields. Out in the distance he heard a couple of Sandhill Cranes with their unearthly, prehistoric calls. What was that all about? he thought of the past week. As it grew lighter, other birds began to call and out of the corner of his eye he saw something fly up to the birch. Tap Tap Tap. It was a Downy but his tapping said nothing. Tap Tap Tap.
Dear reader: indeed, what was this all about? A divine messenger sent to awaken an old man? A major auditory hallucination? Momentary insanity or breakdown? Perhaps a cautionary reminder to us all: take time to enjoy life while you still have it. For some it seems, special circumstances are required for the message to sink in.
THE REDEMPTION OF GEORGE MCPHERSON
George McPherson (1852-1917) is my maternal great grandfather. By most accounts, he was a difficult man and was on poor terms with his family. After he took his own life, the animosity was so great that they buried him in a local cemetery, in a plot apart from the main section. While they did mark his grave, the stone only bore the word "Father". This has always bothered me, this deliberate act of omission fueled by severe hard feelings. Everyone deserves to have his name and life dates on a gravestone. The family did not like his third wife, suicide in those days even among Protestants was a grievous sin and there was considerable shame concerning George's African ancestry. This was a big deal, something that George evidently grappled with his entire life. He left his home in Southern Ohio in his early 20's and, as family lore has it, took his mother's maiden name of McPherson in order to pass as white. It didn't work, people found out and the family concocted a cover story that he had Indian blood instead. No idea of what tribe or any other information, of course. It was only until the 1980's when family researchers including my mother put the record straight about our ancestry.
My original thought for this blog was to write about the injustice concerning George's gravestone. I had not visited in probably 20 years and was pleasantly surprised to find that someone, presumably in the family, had a small slab cemented to the top of George's stone. It bears, like the original, the word "Father" with George's name above and his life dates underneath. Additionally, next to his stone is a new one and it bears the name of his first wife Melinda. Evidently, she was there all along, unmarked.
Maybe now they can rest in peace.
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Sunday, August 22, 2021
MODERN PARABLE: THE HOUSE OF 10,000 SNAILS
Once there was a woman who loved critters of all kinds. She lived with her daughter in a house filled with a menagerie of species. Inside/Outside cats, an old beagle, a parrot, a couple of reptiles as well as those wild outside beasts that she put out food, water and shelter for. She would go out of her way to rescue wild ones and help friends and neighbors with homeless strays. She was starting to enter hoarder territory.
One day her daughter, who was finishing up her the spring term of her Junior year, came home with a 4 large containers of snails. Much her mother's daughter, she brought them home as the lab where she studied was going to dispose of the snails as no one was going to care for them over summer. "They're really easy to take care of" the daughter assured her Mom as she set off a week later to begin a summer internship out-of-state. Easy-peasy and a half page of instructions.
Unfortunately, the daughter only possessed a cursory idea of snail reproduction processes and the mother, having an increasing burden of so many animals to care for, didn't investigate beyond her daughter's notes. As a result, the snails bred like crazy, overrunning their housing in a corner of a spare bedroom. Desperate, the mother put them upstairs in the attic.
For awhile this worked but she didn't grasp that this "out of sight, out of mind" strategy was a really bad mistake. The snails kept reproducing and had begun to crawl behind the walls between the studs looking for space and food. The mother had stopped feeding them and there was a sense of desperation in the snail community. Those who didn't survive created an ungodly stench.
One day, the mother decided that she had had enough and was going to eradicate the snails. She had a mop and a big bucket of bleach and was about the go up the attic access ladder wearing a cloth mask over her nose. She also had in a big 30 gallon trash can lined with a Hefty bag and a snow shovel to use moving the snails. Her ultimate destination was a fire pit out in the back yard where she planned to burn the remains.
Alas, she never made it. The snails, sensing danger began to rummage frantically behind the walls and the attic floor. The mother, saw some slime weeping from the pull-down ladder access hole. She gave it a poke with her mop handle and suddenly the ceiling gave way. Gallons and gallons of slime came rushing out knocking her off her feet. She couldn't get her footing in the slime which was rising fast. She tried heading for the door on her hands and knees but somehow the slime began to solidify. She was stuck like a dinosaur in a tar pit and eventually drowned.
She was found 2 weeks later by authorities who were responding to a safety check call by the daughter. The house was an unbelievable, stinking mess with starving/dying animals mixed in with the thigh high slime. Experts estimated that there had been up to 10,000 snails living in that house.
Lesson of our story: beware of the child who brings home critters from school.
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
THE SALACIOUS BIRD SELLER
C told me this tale the other night about an encounter with a merchant in Paris:
One day she was visiting the Marche aux Fleurs Reine Elizabeth II located near Notre Dame cathedral. She was at one of the bird sellers and came across a bird with no tail feathers. She said to the seller "how can you see a bird that has no tail." Without missing a beat, the man replied "if you put him in with a female, he'll grow his tail back." Wow, on so many levels.
OUR RESIDENT RAPTOR
I'm not sure which one of these guys lives here: both are said to be quite acrobatic with the Cooper's a bit larger than the other, both have long tails. He loves coming down and skimming over the pool. The other day, I saw him whip under a birch branch:
Mr Hawk is represented by the red squiggle flying to the right. The yellow one is a sparrow wheeling a hard right to get the hell out of the way.
Sparrow: "Oh fuck Oh fuck Oh fuck Oh fuck Oh fuck Oh fuck"
Hawk: "Heh, heh, that'll give him something to tell the wife when he gets home."
The next day was my encounter.
I was working in the East Garden trimming the willows when I caught motion out of the corner of my eye. The tithonia and willow branches arc towards each other and I swear this guy came in low under this arc pulling up over my head then executing a hard left while pulling up.
Saturday, August 14, 2021
SCENES OF ANIMAL LIVES
I live in a quiet neighborhood filled with all sorts of species, none of which thankfully, view me as a potential meal. Between being home more since I retired, fortunate in having a large picture window and lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, I have witnessed some scenes of animal life most haven't encountered.
RABBIT PLAY
Being late summer, many species born this season are well into their teens. This year, we have a trio of young rabbits and while most of us have seen them play games of tag and leaping around each other, I recently saw an unusual event. In the back 40 is a berm with honeysuckle bushes planted in 2 rows, one at the base of the berm closest to the house and another near the crest. Last summer, I cleared the area which had been overgrown and overrun with the nasty and deadly vine, the Virginia Creeper. The ground now is generally leaf covered or bare soil on the slopes. One early evening, C and I were eating supper at the dinner table next to the picture window and saw two young buns frolicking. One in particular was engaged in something neither of us had seen: hopping up the slope and rolling down, giving his coat a good dirt bath. He'd stop a bit at the base and rolled side to side like a dog then scramble back up to repeat. Fun and practical!
CLEAN-UP ON SUNSET DRIVE
We see turkey buzzards every day, circling the sky, catching a nice thermal and soaring. Their job in the natural scheme of things is that of janitor like crows and possums. Nature is rather tidy-dead things are cleaned up with the janitors doing the lion's share along with insects and microbes. Usually we see them already at work with roadkill but the other day, I witnessed a longer version. One morning driving home, I saw that there was a dead bun in the middle of my street. I parked in the garage and was walking out to check the mail box when I saw a sky janitor circling low. He swooped and glided down through the tree tops. High in the sky, they don't appear very large but now, their true size becomes rather shockingly apparent. They're huge and this one looked like a black 747 as it came down and landed next to the dead bun. Mr. Buzz hopped once, flapped his wings a bit like cracking his knuckles and settled down to the task at hand. He made short work of the corpse and within a few hours, the clean-up was complete. Nothing left except for, as an old roommate used to say, a grease spot on the pavement. So, when you see these guys in the sky, remember that they just aren't up there flying around. Nope, they are looking for their next job in the never ending cycle of life and death. These days, there's many a retailer and restaurant owner who would give their eye-teeth for a couple of employees with these guy's hard-work and dedication.
A YOUNG SQUIRREL'S LESSON
One early evening awaiting supper, I had the fortune to have a front row seat on squirrel training. In the big birch by the picture window, a mom squirrel was giving Junior some important lessons in branch jumping. As an inducement, she was a walking snack but what Junior didn't realize, she was trying to wean him.She would move out on a limb, wait for Junior to follow then quickly jump to another. It was up to the kid to figure out the best route. She would quickly turn away in denial and run up the trunk to another limb. Hungry Junior would try and follow with mixed results. You could see the learning going on: oh yeah, this branch is too thin-it can barely hold my weight and won't give enough support to launch off from. Lots of trial and error. Mom went very high as she gave Junior more and more puzzles to figure out. Suddenly, I saw Junior fall. I don't know if he had missed his mark or his grip had failed. He fell in slow motion, all four legs spread, floating almost with his scant weight. He bounced once upon landing. Mom saw this and scurried down the trunk to see if he was ok. Predictably, he immediately went for a teat and was denied. "Awww c'mon Ma, I just fell out of the tree. There should be some kind of reward". Nope. Mom ran off with Junior in hot pursuit. Carrots and sticks-such is life.
Friday, August 13, 2021
RUSSIAN ANIMATED SHORT FILM "Tweet Tweet (Чик-Чирик)"
A charming film I stumbled upon. Funny, serious and very Russian with a tasty visual pun at the end.
Sunday, August 8, 2021
Saturday, August 7, 2021
CRAZY APES: FAKE DEER IN THE COUNTRY
A couple of days ago, C and I drove out to Motz Lake Park about 40 minutes away. It's a county park that was once a gravel pit. My watergirl enjoys an hour-long swim in water usually warmer than our pool. I hung out in the car with a book. Usually, I would camp out under one of the big pines but this has been a bad year for skeeters and ticks in particular.
Our route from home is through farmland: wheat has already been harvested, beans are looking robust and the corn is, as high as an elephant's eye.
It always astonishes me to see in people's yards fake deer statues. Why do they have them? The deer herds in the Lower Peninsula are huge and still expanding. The long legged rats, as many gardeners call them, are everywhere. We live in an older, suburban no outlet street bordered by a large woods at one end. The damn things love hostas (aka deer crack), new growth on raspberries and have been known to come on the back deck in the middle of the night and trim down the tops of our tomato plants. WTF!!!
So, why do people put fake deer on their lawns? It's not like a deer sighting is a rare event.
1. Kitsch: Yeah, right up there with flamingos and garden gnomes. Some folks simply have no taste while others could be making an ironic statement.
2. Popular Cult: Older and more mainstream than the Goose Cult from the '90's when waterfowl statues clad in babuskas began appearing on front porches and gardens. I occasionally still see them today and imagine that the occupants are true believers and dress like Central/Eastern European Nanas.
3. Habit: sadly, some people have no imagination or ideas of their own. They put this stuff up because Mom and Dad or Grandpa had them.
4. Strange stuff: I've noticed that fake deer are rarely found in big towns. You usually have to travel to certain distance away from the city before you start seeing the deer. Do you enter some kind of different or parallel universe moving into the country? This is entering Stephen King territory like "Under the Dome".
5. Occult: people install the statues as some sort of deer scarecrow and/or the effigy has been anointed with some special magic powers to deter the live ones.
6. Obsessed hunters: these are the guys who wear camo all the time, subscribe to hunting magazines, have a gun rack in their pickup and live for hunting. The statues serve as a talisman to remind them of their calling-akin to people who have big crosses and Virgin Mary shrines in their yards. It keeps them focused and faithful. Their frequent earworm and favorite hymn is Ted Nugent's "Fred Bear" playing in their heads.
MODERN PARABLE: THE FLOWERING TREE
There once was a tree who was getting on in years. He used to produce in May a glorious display of magenta blooms. Alas, the property owner over time neglected him. No water during droughts, no trimming to keep his shape and make more blooms. He felt unwanted and his blooms became less bountiful as the years went on. What does it matter, he said to himself.
One Fall, new people moved in next door. They were youngish, at least compared to his owner. There had been a lengthy drought that Summer and all plants in the neighborhood were ailing. One day, the neighbor was watering his thirsty shrubs when he noticed how bedraggled and unkempt the shrub looked. The soil around the base was cracked with dryness, a sure sign the shrub had not been watered. The neighbor set the hose by the shrubs trunk and gave him a long, slow drink. Overnight, his leaves plump with water no longer drooped.
The neighbor asked permission to do some trimming. The owner was fine with it. He simply did not have the energy anymore to do such things.
Deadwood was cut out, overgrown sections that stuck out like a cowlicks were trimmed back, crossed branches were removed. The shrub felt the best he had in a long time. He even put out new growth in the unusually warm, waning days of Autumn. Rain was falling regularly so his roots were nice and full. As frosts came, he dropped his leaves and settled in for the winter hibernation.
When he awoke, he felt like his old self. There had been a good snow pack so there was plenty of water in the soil for his roots when the ground thawed. The days grew longer and the shrub could feel not only the warmth of the sun on his branches but joined in the universal life energy vibrating among all the other species as the Earth woke up. The judicious trimming by the neighbor meant where there was once one branch, there were two. He felt the expansion of his being and pushed new leaves as much as he could.
And that year, out of gratitude to the neighbor, he bloomed twice.
MODERN FABLE: THE MAN WITH THE SWINGIN' HEART
One day a man was rushed to the ER for heart failure. The doctors and staff worked desperately to keep his heart pumping and somewhat succeeded. The man was alive, yes, but he was full of tubes and drugs and the heart was artificially stimulated. His wife was in despair not knowing how to help. Of course one could always pray and one of the staff nurses suggested that she read to him or play some favorite music to keep his brain stimulated. The man was a huge Louie Prima fan and the wife directed staff to have Prima's music playing 24/7.
36 hours later, much to the surprise and amazement of all, the man's heart began beating without help. Many of the tubes and drugs were pulled and brain activity was strong. One of the attending cardiologist, a piano player who could read music, saw something striking in the man's ECG. It was a pattern, a melodic pattern and the doctor began to hum a tune as he read. A lover of early and mid-century jazz he came to a startling and insane realization: he was humming a Louie Prima tune.Basin Street Blues/It's Sleepy Time Down South
Monday, August 2, 2021
BUTTERFLIES IN MY GARDEN
Their population is tiny, no more than a few individuals. Monarchs have the majority.
Monarch butterfly
Canadian Tiger Swallowtail
Eastern Black Swallowtail
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