Musings

Multiple realities seem to be easier to contemplate if they are not personal and are part of the world at large. The other day I recorded a quote from the Dalai Lama about two realities—the deep-thinking Buddhist one of the DL and a few others, and that of the rest of us. Today I’ll note a comment from Pierre Bayard’s Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? (1998; English translation 2000). Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd came out in 1926, and caused a bit of a flurry when the (il?)literati realized that the narrator of the mystery story was the guy who-dun-it (this is widely known, so this can hardly be considered a spoiler).

Most lit-crit types go on about how unheard of this was, and are both pro and con on the merits of this twist. Of course, in conventional Chinese “detective” stories, the evil-doer is known from almost the beginning, and the accent in the stories is on how s/he is trapped and what the punishment is (e.g., Robert Van Gulik’s Judge Dee series, translations), so how innovative Christie was is questionable.

Back to Bayard. He writes about what he calls the delusion of interpretation, that Christie’s Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, was delusional when he pronounced his conclusions about the story’s murder to those involved, at a typical Christie gathering of involved characters. Bayard notes:

Constructing a delusion at least offers one advantage: It allows us an alternative way of reflecting on a true reading. Often one poses the question in the most traditional manner, by wondering how to approach the true. It may be of interest, however, to post the question from another angle and to wonder, rather, how to approach the false by exploring it from within, thus rendering it familiar.

One assumes that honest exam questions where the testee is asked to answer either true or false includes only statements that are unequivocally true or false. In the real world, what we far more frequently encounter is something in the middle, perhaps either mostly true or mostly false*. Or, sometimes, situationally true or situationally false.

Certainly, Bayard’s point that you can understand the nuances of any situation better by teasing out the fine points of both the apparent truths and apparent falsehoods, and multiple realities in general, is, I think, fine advice.

* One of the most memorable uses of the qualifier “mostly” must be in the movie The Princess Bride (1987), when Miracle Max (Billy Crystal), a sort of healer, pronounces the hero, Westley (Carey Elwes) to be “mostly dead” when he is apparently dead, and after treatment becomes mostly paralyzed. This is a truly fine movie, even without considering some of the monsters the hero and heroine must overcome are ROUS (Rodents Of Unusual Size).

Posted at 8:06 PM | Comments Off on Reality is…?

Central detail, Window with Hudson River Landscape from Rochroane by Louis Comfort Tiffany/Tiffany Studios, 1905; commissioned by Melchior S. Beltzhoover for the music room of his mansion (apparently demolished in 1978 after much of the artwork etc. had been removed) in Irvington-On-Hudson, New York. [Full view, but tiny image, although this one’s a bit larger.] I guess the music room had been relegated to a side of the house with an inferior view, of the driveway or stables….

One Laptop Per Child—OLPC. Here’s the link.

Today’s my day for a disquisition on this. We ordered ours today.

In short, Nicholas Negroponte has put together a team that has invented a versatile, easy-to-use, smallish laptop intended to improve and extend learning possibilities for kids (and teachers, parents, and families) around the globe. When you click the purchase button, you get one for you (which, perhaps, can be donated in this country) and pay for one for “a child in need” for $400 plus shipping (just under $425 total). And the OLPC Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Cha-ching: tax deduction.

We all, as members of humanity, need to find ways to give to our fellow human beings. Giving can take many forms (EG, food, money, a listening ear). And the fellow human beings may be known to you, or be strangers you will never meet.

JCB and I try and spread our giving around, and vary it year by year, as well as philosophically.

I wanted to do the OLPC ’cause I think putting possibility in the hands of others is a wonderful thing, and possibility can take many forms.

We had already sealed the deal when I watched this one-hour video (highly recommended) presentation made to Google people—although I’m a bit squeamish that the identifiable individuals in the first three/four rows are all male…. I now understand better how the laptop works (using so little power, so efficiently, with an open system, so users can use it to invent and create and dream, to not need updates, armed with an anti-theft system, etc.) [link to text on this].

I was really sold that we had done a good thing when I listened to the opening section of the Google video when the presenter, Ivan Krstic, discussed how people learn (I know, that’s the anthropologist in me). OLPC’s goal is to change how kids learn, improve it and take it beyond the normal formal learning system (teacher in front of students directing the learning experience in classroom in building), in which learning is no longer mostly curiosity-driven (Krstic’s term), but mostly conducted by the teacher.

OLPC’s idea is to open up opportunity. Now. By reinforcing peer learning, allowing kids to follow their own curiosity. Laptops might help, assisted by the conventional classroom learning experience.

Then I became REALLY CONVINCED that this was a wise allocation of our giving resources.

’Nuff preaching. Your move.

After all, this is T-giving week….

Posted at 1:22 PM | 1 Comment »

We learned many new vocabulary words at the Corning Museum of Glass, which I should have expected but didn’t.

Some words describe the glass objects, or parts of them. Others derive from the manufacturing process. All of them are not in the vocabularies of most of us. Take these two words: goblet and prunt. You are most likely familiar with the first and probably not with the second.

Technically, a goblet is a bowl on a stem supported by a foot.

Prunts are dabs or blobs of glass attached to the stem. They are both decorative, and sometimes embellished with a stamp, and can help improve the drinker’s grip.

This goblet (sorry, I didn’t photo the identification tag, but I suspect, hmm, maybe German?) has green prunts that have been stamped with a knobbly texture.

These goblets are fairly large, would have been relatively costly for most households, held alcoholic beverages, and may have been passed among diners—all the more reason for increasing the likelihood of safe passage by enhancing the grip.

Posted at 4:56 PM | Comments Off on Prunted goblet

It is impossible to pick an iconic image from the Corning Museum of Glass (we took almost 300 pictures during about four hours of wandering the place). I, of course, was most entranced by the historical collection of glass, from vessels to anthropomorphic figures, and more! Instead of any iconic image, I offer this glass basilisk, about 6 inches tall, in a terrible setting for photography (crammed on a shelf with other objects, with an unattractive backdrop).

I suppose many people encountered the word basilisk first in the Harry Potter books (although it’s also mentioned by Shakespeare), but the word has quite a history. In the real world, a basilisk is a mythical creature, a reptile hatched from a cock’s egg. Lots of impossibility there!

For reasons I can’t quite figure out, I keep thinking this little guy, if alive, would be grumpy and curmudgeonly, and perhaps a bit vague like an armadillo.

Posted at 11:22 PM | Comments Off on Glass adventure

Today we cruised through an area in Ohio where Amish farmers continue the old labor-intensive ways. I had to search my memory for the name of these harvest constructions of corn stalks bound together to dry in the field. First I could only think of shucks, but that’s the name of the dried husks, sometimes used to wrap tamales. The word is similar, hence my confusion. It’s shocks.

Posted at 11:22 PM | Comments Off on Maize vocab

Here’s recognition of Veteran’s Day coming later this week….

Our word veteran is from the early 16th century French vétéran or Latin veteranus, from vetus ‘old.’ FYI

BTW, should I have flipped this image? This is the way I shot it, but it seems to me that most unfurled flag pictures I remember portray the flagpole to the left and the flapping flag to the right. Does this look a bit backward to you?

Posted at 11:22 PM | Comments Off on Recognition image

Washoe is sine qua non in intro anthro classes. Beginning in the late 1960s, her handlers taught her signs, and she used the 130 or so she learned both spontaneously and reactively. This proved that other primates could use language, albeit without vocalization.

Posted at 8:28 AM | Comments Off on RIP Washoe

Usually, I try to take a few minutes each day to peruse the news online, just to keep up with current events (as we were taught in junior high). Now, the WashPost reports there’s a web page, Brijit, that distills the best of the best (depending on your point of view) of the latest news stories. With their wee abstracts, they offer more than a simple RSS feed with a few lines of text.

The trouble, of course, is whether their idea of “good stuff” matches yours or not. And, I guess, how fast you can scan/speed read to discover what you think is important/relevant/interesting….

Roughly each week I consult Arts & Letters Daily, which also digests, but not the whole spectrum of topics….

Maybe if I augment my usual browse with ALD and Brijit I’ll stay current?

And remind me again why knowing current events are important? Why I shouldn’t do the ostrich thing?

Posted at 5:11 PM | 1 Comment »

Feathers are gorgeous; no wonder they’ve been used for millennia by people for adornment.

Probably I’m too cynical too much of the time, but tell me, there’re objects placed in rooms, like living rooms, by designers and those who fancy themselves as designers, which are called “conversation pieces.” Now tell me, have you ever conversed about one of these conversation pieces? C’mon, without sarcasm. Truly?

I subscribe to the standard Midwestern terminology—“dust catcher,” which makes far more sense.

My kinda conversation piece…

An estimated 25% of the nation’s baking soda is used as antacid for livestock.

That’s from a web site that seems legitimate, but maybe not (here’s the book he’s citing from…). I assume he means the non-organic livestock biz.

Oooh. Lemme get back to Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, where I’m sure I’ll find out more scary stuff about the food I have been merrily eating, which will spur me to make some changes in my diet, which means I’ll have to read more labels at the groc store or even contemplate finding a sunny space for a veggie garden (tough on our lot).

…’cause reading’s more fun than cleaning dust catchers!

Posted at 4:24 PM | Comments Off on Conversation pieces

Dragon.

Draconian.

“Dragon” comes to English via Latin from Greek drakōn, meaning ‘serpent,’ according to my Mac-dictionary.

Draco was a 7th century BC Athenian with a penchant for imposing the death penalty for even trivial crimes, hence our “draconian,” for harsh or severe.

And a Harry Potter character, of course.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Etymology—dragon