Saturday, April 28, 2007

These are a few

Phrase of the Day: I invite you...

Friend of the Day: The Komputo King himself, Glenn


Place of the Year: The Peace Cafe, Castle Road - Obviously.

Best Greeting: Namaste, I Bow to You


Link of the Day: Lisa B Magdalena (Try a reading on the site)

Sound of the Day: Kings of Leon: On Call



Sight of the Day: Sage-smoke rising from the window-sill as the sun sets.

Lyric of the Day: Hey there, little snapping turtle...
from Devendra Bernhart's Little Yellow Spider


Thursday, April 26, 2007

Some called him a hero. Others called him a heel...


I've spent the last two days underneath a duvet on the couch, watching a variety of films, reading a little when my attention span held and sleeping a lot. No, not the mother of all hangovers - although at times it felt like it - but some attack of flu and gastric symptoms that I'm not going to describe here (it's not that type of blog).

I hate being ill. It makes me angry at people who are well, angry at people who try to help me, angry at other people who are also ill. It brings out my anger. I wonder if this is strange for a hypochondriac. I spend enough time imagining that I might be ill and yet am furious to be proved right.

I missed a diagnosis on this one, as I didn't see it coming. This has made me resent being ill even more.

I watched Citizen Kane today - an old Christmas present that I've never found time for before - and enjoyed a lot of the dialogue. Charles Foster Kane is a fascinating character and I wonder how much the he was based on real life newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst.

A toast, Jedediah: to Love on my own terms.

You can't buy a bag of peanuts in this town without someone writing a song about you.

I suppose he had a private sort of greatness, but he kept it to himself.

I would have been a great man, if it weren't for all that money...

Thompson: He made an awful lot of money.
Bernstein: Well, it's no trick to make a lot of money... if what you want to do is make a lot of money.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The Goddess of Advice

Inspired by an evening at the Peace Cafe, Castle Road.

You have much less to fear than you think.
Everything you are most afraid of is inevitable anyway, and you were never in control.


You are far more afraid than you think. You are beginning to know that the books, the cigarettes, the drink, yes, even the Internet, are places you hide within, passing time, not spending it.

Let the distractions go. Sit.
You are in the silence that follows.
Stay still, listen and soon, the fear will pass. Hold this feeling for as long as you can.
Revisit the old distractions from time to time. You'll enjoy them more
when you're out of the habit.


Open yourself to others. This is your biggest fear.
Wage war on it every day - if you don't win this battle, it will be one of your greatest regrets. Trust me.
Open your thighs to love, your heart to friendship, and your arms to family,
wherever you find them.
You are less sure of yourself than anyone else could be. There is only one way to deal with doubt - go where it tells you not to.


So much will happen, much of it will scare you.
Make friends with the Fear - hear its voice, it has much to tell you about yourself and others.
Do not underestimate your ability to invest in people dangerous to themselves and to you.
Remember love speaks through action, not words. Let go of the sound of your own voice. Act. When you speak, speak your mind. Be mindful.


Follow your instincts. Keep your oldest friends and never be afraid to find more.
It is easier for the Universe to reach you in the company of others.


Know you can achieve what you're dreaming of right now.
In so many ways, you already have.
Don't hold back, don't hold back others.
You are more beautiful right now, as you sit reading this letter, than you have been since you were a child.
You are becoming more yourself with every open-hearted moment.
Never stop.

Monday, April 23, 2007

I am all I have to rest within when you have gone

No, I'm not the monkey at the typewriter. I'm A monkey at a typewriter.

There is an old story about a theological debate between Anglican Archbishop Samuel Wilberforce and evolutionist Thomas Huxley, in which Huxley rebutted Wilberforce's assertion that the complexity of nature necessitated a Creator by arguing that given time, all possible combinations of matter found in creation would occur by random chance.

This debate famously, and allegedly gave rise to the often cited saying that given an infinite amount of time, six monkeys and six typewriters, the monkeys would eventually type the works of Shakespeare.

In my travels through the Worldwide Wonder Web, I found an article that describes what happens when a University gave a group of monkeys their typewriters (but not infinity, for obvious reasons - there's never enough infinity to go round) to test this theory.

Many thanks to Brad Harrub, Ph.D for presenting this info on the Interpipe:

Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word. According to Brian Bernbaum, “a group of faculty and students in the university’s media program left a computer in the monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in southwest England, home to six Sulawesi crested macaques. Then they waited.” The results were far from what evolutionists had hoped to see. Researcher Mike Phillips noted the first thing to happen was that the “lead male got a stone and started bashing…it,” (as quoted in Bernbaum, 2003). He went on to note “another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard.”

Eventually the six monkeys—named Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe, and Rowan—did produce five pages of “text.” However, that “text” was composed primarily of the letter S, with the letters A, J, L, and M added on rare occasions. Mike Phillips noted, “They pressed a lot of S’s.” He went on to state, “obviously, English isn’t their first language.”

I love that those monkeys have names. And I love that last sentence: Obviously, English isn't their first language. Obviously.