For, isn't it the truth though?

-
The unique character of the place does not lie so much in detail as in broad effects.

It's all part of the charm—the all-inclusive quality and unwitting self-reflective veracity of a random comment like this one:





For, isn't it true though?

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.





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My hallucinations are endless

Personally, I blame it on the Lightning Grass.

So, I might not be the best person to ask about Barbie or Hemingway's beard's second life:



Besides, my understanding is that rhetorical questions are a figure of speech—they are usually not meant to be answered.


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Believe

-

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— Que voulez vous faire plus tard?

— Le bien autour de moi, Jean-Pierre . . .



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A New Direction For America

Caption this photo.


Yes we can!

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Meanwhile, in the men's room...

Caption this photo

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Stormy Weather

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the South Los Angeles, Long Beach and Whittier areas.


Radar shows heavy rain falling in Long Beach, with the storm moving in at 35 mph to the northeast. At 1:03 pm (local time) the tornado warning was extended to Orange County.


If in mobile homes or vehicles...evacuate them and get inside a substantial shelter. If no shelter is available...lie flat in the nearest ditch or other low spot and cover your head with your hands.
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Silver Bells

Joseph Cornell, c. 1948, Untitled (Medici Princess)

Construction, 17 5/8 x 11 1/8 x 4 3/8 in

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!


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J'entends le Moulin

Refrain:

J'entends le moulin
Tique, tique, taque
J'entends le moulin, taque.

Mon père a fait bâtir maison
J'entends le moulin taque
L'a fait bâtir à trois pignons
Tique, tique, tique, taque.

Sont trois charpentiers qui la font,
J'entends le moulin taque,
Mais le plus jeun', c'est mon mignon,
Tique, tique, tique, taque.

Qu'apportes-tu, mon p'tit fripon?
J'entends le moulin taque
C'est un pâté de trois pigeons
Tique, tique, tique, taque.

Asseyons- nous et le mangeons
J'entends le moulin taque
En s'asseyant, il fit un bond
Tique, tique, tique, taque.

En s'asseyant, il fit un bond
J'entends le moulin taque
Qui fit trembler mer et poissons
Tique, tique, tique, taque.

Qui fit trembler mer et poissons,
J'entends le moulin taque
Et les cailloux qui sont au fond
Tique, tique, tique, taque.
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July 4th

© Jean-Paul Bourdier


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Sub Rosa

Thanks a lot! I have Jin and her spooky tale to blame for another awkward exchange I had with one of the bartenders at The Wulfshead.

Well, it's my own fault really. I mean, by now, I should know better than even broach such a subject---any subject---with any of the staff here. Not that, most of the time, one will fare any better engaging some of the patrons.

What can I say? I just couldn't help it: I asked the bartender what he knew about Spirits. You would have done the same thing. I hinted to him that anything he'd share with me as I was under the influence of wine (sub vino) would also remain sub rosa. And this is how I now know more than anyone here---more than I really cared to---about some rather expensive vodka distillates produced by this Oregon craft micro distillery. The bartender told me that in sampling some of the "elixir" he was serving me, I was sharing in a long and honored tradition in line with the Illuminati, the Priory of Scion, and the Knights Templar. Methinks he was putting me on!

But, speaking of which---i.e., Spirits and bottles (the kind from which genies are freed or imprisoned), and Sub Rosa....[continued]

Prior to visiting The Wulfshead last night, I had just been watching that quaint and rather atypical 1994 TNG episode:


I kid you not---cross my heart and hope to die!

Now, how is that for a coincidence?

Odd isn't it? I thought so too. Imagine my surprise when, visiting The wulfshead shortly afterward, I ran into Jin and her enraptured audience as she was relating her own ghost story, and possibly a Gothic romance of her own.

You would have been amazed at the amount of pastries those people can ingest---Jin's audience that is, not Gothic lovers.

One of the scenes in the TNG's episode is rather hot:

The candle (a family heirloom which is a depository for the ghostlike entity) begins to flicker in Beverly's quarters as she is sleeping soundly. The covers over her begin to slide away, and so is her nightgown, slowly exposing her shoulder, and Beverly reacts as if someone were kissing her on the neck. A disembodied voice calls her name as she stirs and shivers...

And...err...ah...where was I?

Ah, yes, ghosts!

The problem with ghosts is that it is not always clear how they come about or which came first, the ghost or the belief. It's the same thing with myths. Myths and beliefs sometimes take a life of their own. In time, some manifest as true because enough people believe so passionately about them. Some are helpful. And some will lead you astray.

A common question when it comes to "apparitions" is: "Did we see it because it really was there or did we see it because we expected to see it due to the known story of the place?"

This is how the Philip experiment was born.

A a group of Canadian parapsychologists during the 1970s hoped their experiment would help in the study of the phenomena of poltergeists, hauntings, and Spiritualism. Their findings appear in the work Conjuring up Philip (1976) by Iris Owen and Margaret Sparrows.

Philip was a fictitious concoction agreed upon from the start by the members of the group who created him. Like a character in a fictional novel, Philip was given a name and a made up history. The group proceeded from there to gather on a regular basis and sit around a table, like in a Spiritists seance, to conjure the spirit of Philip.

One day Philip responded.

The results of the experiment---which were fully documented on film and audiotape---are quite intriguing:


Philip

The Philip Phenomenon

How to create a Ghost

The Skippy Experiment


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Tu vas finir par me plaire

You know who you are >;->


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The sacred geometry of chance

Astrology... If you ask me, I'd say it's all in our mind...

Today's birthday (March 20): Don't be surprised if the following year brings many uncontrollable fits of giggles. You decide it's your job to feel good, and you create circumstances in which it's easy for you to do so. April brings new friends. Cancer and Libra adore you. Your lucky numbers are

10
4
33
39 and 17.

Utrum fiat tibi gaudium aut dolor, iterum talos iace
Life offers joy along with pain, so take the dice and throw again

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Shaken not stirred

Sounds like good advice to me.


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The Girl in the Other Room

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing . . .


Steered not shaken, I wonder . . . Who is that girl in the other room?

And so, I must ask - Bartender . . . what the @#*! does one have to do around here to get some champagne?



No language has ever really come to grips with temporal relationships.
---A Gowachin Opinion

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Breaking the Ice

No etiquette about dancing at the Wulfshead, I noticed. And it's probably best that way. I think dancing should be left to the discretion of the patrons, don't you think? As a general rule, as most gals already know, accepting a drink from an unfamiliar guy is debatable because, well, it sometimes might give the guy unwarranted expectations, if you know what I mean. But then again, as both my good friends jazzolog and quinty will tell you, I have never been one to refuse a drink, now and then. And, hey, if a guy buys me a drink, I might occasionally feel like I owe him a dance. I don't mind. It depends mostly on the circumstances, and on the guy, obviously, and the music that is playing on the dance floor. Mr. Valenkine is so right about that: real men dance! And so, if Ben Trovato is buying a drink, here (or was it butter?), it would be lacking in grace not to respond in kind to such a gentlemanly invitation, wouldn't you agree? Besides, the man is dashing.

It's true, there are things which need no translation, even if Men are from Mars.

And, uh… Oops, wrong link!

Oh, well, never mind then. Anyway, one would have to be from another planet not to know the basic premise of the book. It goes something like this: Many years ago, Men used to live on Mars and women on Venus. They met, and fell in love and actually did enjoy and respect their differences, until they moved to Earth and forgot their divergent origins. And ever since, men mistakenly expect women to think and communicate and react the way men do, and women expect men to think and communicate and react the way women do.

As Yoda would put it, "Mm…a source of much frustration and suffering, those unrealistic expectations are." But then again what does Yoda know about women.



I don’t know, I try not to be rude and all that, but I think I’d tend to be partial to Susan Hamson’s Rebuttal from Uranus about the book on this one:

Despite its promotional hype, at its very core it is a sexist, patronizing, male-centered invective which does little more than perpetuate long-held negative gender stereotypes.

Still, the premise is a catchy one. I mean, what about this take on the topic by Simon Maxwell, If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, are the British from Mercury and the Japanese from Saturn?

The author’s got a point: Saturn and Mercury are on course, not for a collision, but for more closely synchronized orbits.

And the point is: diversity is a good thing.

But, diversity still needs to be managed: we all live on our own little individual island-planets, yet, no man is an island. Ay, there’s the rub. Bob Leckridge, here (Human Not Zombies: What Planet do you live on?), reflects on how Saint-Exupery, in The Little Prince, "has this theme running right through his brilliant, thought-provoking little story":

The philosopher, Ravoux, says that the main theme of "Le Petit Prince" is the difficulty we find in making connections. We all experience the world from the first person perspective, and we have no way of experiencing the world from another person’s perspective. Not wholly. Not fully. We use language and fashion stories to try to convey our views and our experiences to others. We use imagination and empathy to try and put ourselves in others’ shoes, but it’s not easy.

A tribute to The Little Prince by theOutcast for the Amazing Astronomy contest.

Returning to Ben Trovato’s comment, the problem with Machine Translation (MT) has always been that in order to decode the meaning of a text in its entirety, the translator must interpret and analyze all the features of the text, a process that requires not only an in-depth knowledge of the grammar, semantics, syntax, idioms, etc., of the source language, but also a comprehension of the culture of its speakers. The translator needs the same in-depth knowledge to re-encode the meaning in the target language.

Just stating the obvious: it doesn’t seem like it is exclusively a MT issue. Nor can it solely be reduced to a language to language issue, either. A same word within a same language does not mean the same thing to us all. Nor does a same word necessarily mean the same thing to a same person from day to day.

∀x∀y (x=y ↔ (ϕx ↔ ϕy) and all that. Mathematics's a bitch.

As my good friend Heraclitus used to say, "you cannot go into the same water twice." (The man hated the work of Homer---what can I say, nobody’s perfect. The way I look at it, you've got to put that in perspective, you know: after all, didn't Heraclitus also think of Hesiod, Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Hekataios as idiots?)

Reflecting upon this, I am reminded of how long mankind has been around and of how pretty much everything has already been said, in one form or another, and forever, it seems.

The language of mathematics, they say, is the only language shared by all human beings regardless of culture.


Insofar as this universe is concerned, "2 + 2 = 4" might possibly be truly universal. And so might prime numbers. I don't know.

But other fundamental forces (evolutionary forces) are at play. Certainly, Happiness is up there as a drive that seems pretty much universal on Earth amongst complex life forms. And so, is sadness, too. And possibly gratefulness, to a lesser extent. Kindness---and hatred, too. And fellowship (hopefully, for the sake of mankind).

And what of greed? Greed is good, they say - it is the motor that drives economic growth and human progress. Or is it, now?

The fact of the matter, is that, unlike mathematics, Kindness, Fellowship, or the pursuit of Happiness are elusive things to work with when in search of specific grounds of common understanding.

Teilhard de Chardin (The Phenomenon of Man) stated first what is now commonplace: evolution has progressed beyond the realm of mere genetic alteration. It has never, perhaps, been so obviously evident as it is nowadays with the advent of the internet and new forms of communication: Man has become largely epigenic, meaning that through its ability to store and recover information as images and written records, the human animal has created an environment as much conditioned by symbols and languages as by biological and environmental factors. I dance the body electric and, as that clip from the Wonder Years do remind us of so well, still the body thinks. Body jargon and hormone squirts, these begin to get at communication.*

It is an old saying: all the wisdom of the universe cannot match the alert willingness to dodge a violent blow*:



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