Here’s a heartwarming little story, and a brief diversion from weightier matters: according to an item in Tuesday’s Daily Mail, visitors to London’s St. James Park were witnesses to an epic struggle as a pelican grappled with a pigeon. According to the report, it took the enterprising waterfowl twenty minutes to swallow its peristeronic snack, which fought vigorously to escape, but ended up, apparently still alive, in the larger bird’s belly.
Well, we finally made it to Michigan. We caught an 11:45 flight out of Gotham, and got to Ann Arbor in time to join the procession of the faithful down State Street to the Big House, which, just for the record, really is big — It is the largest American football stadium anywhere, and, according to this Wikipedia article, is the 29th-largest sports venue in the world (the larger ones are mostly racetracks). For today’s contest we were joined by 110,923 other spectators, and let me tell you, that’s a fair-sized crowd — numbering only slightly fewer than the population of Ann Arbor itself. And we were not disappointed; Michigan triumphed as expected, 20-6, even without the services of star wide receiver Mario Manningham, who is nursing a banged-up knee.
Just a few odds and ends for tonight; I’m whipped. Nocturnal recluse that I am, I’m still not used to this up-first-thing-in-the-morning business, and I’ve been averaging about four or five hours of sleep. By the time Friday rolls around all I can see is a great Eye, rimmed with fire.
We’ve all heard the suggestion that a roomful of monkeys hammering randomly away at typewriters would, given billions of years, recreate the complete works of Shakespeare. (A “typewriter”, for those of you whose brows are wrinkled solely by bafflement, is an antique mechanical device that generated crumpled sheets of paper.) It’s an interesting idea, but if you’re like me, you’ve just been too busy to try it out.
Well, the wait is over. Take a look at this. It’s not exactly instant gratification; thus far the sedulous simian simulacra have only got as far as the first 24 letters from “Henry IV, Part II”. But, as someone once said, “how poor are they that have not patience.”
I hate to keep harping on this topic, but the weather here in New York today has been particularly unpleasant. The air seems oddly compressed, and even more saturated and viscous than usual – as though it contained not just the usual summertime admixture of water vapor and filth, but also maybe some mule sweat or hog saliva. There was not the slightest breeze, most of the day, to stir the fetid broth, and the sun, visible at times through its nubilous veil, brought the whole dolorous mess to a slow and sultry simmer as the dreary day wore on. The psychological effect – to drain one of all joy, hope, or sense of purpose – is also deepened, for those who have spent a summer in New York before, and haven’t managed to repress the memory, by the certain knowledge that worse is yet to come.
Things should be getting back to normal around here tomorrow, but having just got home to Brooklyn after a long day of driving in the rain, I think that tonight we’ll just have a few links from the mailbag. First, from Jess Kaplan comes a patriotic little Java applet with an appealing Big Apple theme. Next we have, courtesy of Mike Zaharee (formerly of PubSub‘s Granite State Research Kitchen), further evidence, as if any were necessary, of what mischievous little imps the North Koreans are, and finally, thanks to Jon Mandell, we have a glimpse of the amusing discomfiture at Wikipedia as the fractious online organism tries to equilibrate in the wake of Enron blackguard Ken Lay‘s unlamented demise.
My friend Jess Kaplan has just brought to my attention an ominous datum: on this numerologically significant date, 6-6-06, the cost of the average fixed-rate mortgage just happens to be a rather unsettling 6.66%.
In a gratifying development, it appears that scientists have finally weighed in on that dimwitted question concerning the chicken and the egg. As w.w.w. readers will recall, of course, from this post, the matter had in fact already been settled.
It is extraordinarily quiet here in Wellfleet tonight. It’s been cool and grey all day, and just at dusk a thick fog crept in. The air is heavy and still, and a gentle rain is falling. It is the first day of the new Moon, and the sky is utterly back.
We live on a small hilltop on a little dirt road in the woods, about half a mile from the harbor, and although it is Friday night on a major holiday weekend, nary a soul is stirring anywhere within earshot. Even the coyotes, who often gather at night for no apparent reason other than to see how much noise they can make, are keeping mum.
When you are used to living in New York City, which is always ablaze with lights and throbbing and humming with purposeful clamor, such darkness and silence has quite an effect. Tonight seems almost actively black and quiet, and stepping outside one feels oneself in the presence of a great enveloping blotter, drawing out all that hustle and bustle so that something else, perhaps, may enter.
My friend George Beke, in an online discussion of the Gospel of Judas, quotes G.I. Gurdjieff’s book Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson. The book takes place on the spaceship Karnak where the horned Beelzebub, returning much older and wiser to his home planet after millennia of exile in our solar system for his youthful transgressions, is telling his grandson Hassein about the strange beings who dwell on the planet Earth.
Baseball fans of a certain age may well recall the outstanding 1986 New York Mets. In particular, the Mets’ postseason that year provided some of the most memorable games of all time.
My son Nick, a promising young pitcher in his own right, has sent me this fantastic link, to a most unusual reenactment of the final inning of the historic Game Six of the 1986 World Series. As the Mets came to bat they were down 5-3 to the Boston Red Sox, who at the time were still laboring under the curse of the Bambino.
It’s quite a piece of work. Enjoy.
Having got up and off to work earlier than usual today, gone off to Don Alias’s funeral (a sad affair) up in Harlem at midday, strained my brain for hours afterward writing code, then spent the evening at the kwoon, I’m just too tired to write much tonight. So I will just pass along an interesting item from the New York Times’s website (with a tip of the hat to Eugene): The Gospel of Judas, a manuscript dating back to the fourth century A.D. or so, has just been translated. One of the “Gnostic Gospels“, it paints Judas in a more favorable light; in fact it depicts him as Jesus’s most valuable ally, as the one who made his sacrifice possible. Read more here.
I had to share this, which came to me by way of Eugene Jen.
Bon appétit.
I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, only about half a block from Prospect Park. Park Slope is aptly named – the land ascends smoothly from the harbor to the park, rising about 150 feet over a couple of miles. There is a low ridge connecting several little hills; the highest of them, and the summit of King’s County, is the vertiginous Battle Hill, about a mile away in Green-Wood Cemetery, piercing the clouds at 220 feet. Brooklyn cannot, however, boast the highest point in New York City – that distinction belongs to the otherwise lowly borough of Staten Island, where the Todt Hill massif soars to a breathtaking 420 feet, an irresistible lure to every Alpinist from the Kill van Kull to Perth Amboy.
My friend Jon Mandell has sent along a link to an amusing, if slightly stressful, little game. You can try it here.
Tonight is the beginning of the Year of the Dog, lunar year 4703. It is called “bingxu” in the “Stem-Branch” system, which repeats a name every 60 years.
Congratulations, and may you prosper.
It wasn’t until I began blogging that I realized how different it, and journalism generally, is from what one usually has in mind when one contemplates taking up writing. We have a mental image of the writer toiling in solitude to leave his brilliant existential mark; one thinks of the words, once set down, as going up on permanent display, for the delight of the ages, and certainly this is the case for the successful author of books. But the journalist’s or blogger’s work is more like the chef’s – meant to be consumed as soon it is prepared, it is served up in single portions, with a new dish offered every day. There is, though, a certain sadness at seeing a favorite post work its way down, and eventually off, the screen.
But for those who seek inner enlightenment, blogging is the perfect avocation – like the elaborate sand mandalas prepared by Tibetan monks, it teaches us that life is a process, not a destination, and helps train us to avoid the attachment to results that is such a spiritual trap.
On the other hand, if you are Oprah Winfrey, and think that The Best of waka waka waka has a nice ring to it, do get in touch. To really train oneself to avoid attachments, it’s good to have something substantial to work with.
Yesterday we had a visit from my mother-in-law, Lily Phillips. She has had quite a remarkable life – she grew up in Vienna in an educated family of Jewish heritage, and was separated from her parents just before the beginning of World War II. Although she was technically too old – she was already in her late teens – a place was found for her on the Kindertransport, and she was evacuated to England, where she worked, utterly displaced and alone, as a servant in a succession of strangers’ homes. After the war she made her way to New York City, where she was reunited with her parents, who had managed to escape the ovens as well, and where, as a talented artist, she found work as a comic-book illustrator – an extremely unusual occupation for a woman at the time. She may have been the only one. Lily is very intelligent and well-read, and has kept her mind active in her later years by taking courses in philosophy and literature at Hunter College. Widowed since 1982, she lives alone on East 72nd Street. Her late husband Randolph, himself an extraordinary man, was actually the first chairman of the Committee to Impeach Nixon, argued before the Supreme Court despite not being a member of the bar, and was the defendant in a landmark conscientious-objector case during WWII that set the precedent that objectors may refuse combat service on purely ethical, rather than religious grounds.
If you have an interest in science (readers may by now have guessed that I do), may I recommend that you subscribe to the daily email newsletter published by PhysOrg.com. It’s a quick read – just headlines with links – and there is always something interesting. Today’s number, though, was a tad dispiriting.
In case you were wondering why your dishes were rattling, it turns out that the Milky Way is “flapping in the breeze”. Apparently the Magellanic Clouds, who I always knew were up to no good, have grabbed our galaxy by the dark matter, and are generally disturbing the peace.
Learn more here.
Here’s an excellent sentence – a coruscating little gem of pith and understatement – from Wikipedia’s entry Alcoholic Beverage:
People under the influence of alcohol sometimes find themselves in dangerous or compromising situations where they would not be had they remained sober.
Don’t know what made me think of that this morning, but there it is.
I’m just too worn out tonight to do any writing, so I will offer some entertaining fluff for my legions of readers – two links from my friend Eugene at the PubSub command center:
First, an amusing little diversion. Can you work out the simple trick?
Next, some perplexing scientific questions.