Good afternoon, my friends. I would like to greet you with, "Happy Christmas Decoration Day!" or "Happy First Day of Christmas!" but I was too busy celebrating that day to offer all the greetings I should like to have offered.
In my view, there are several holidays that supersede all others, Christmas being chief among them. That being the case, I find the First Day of Christmas, always the day after Thanksgiving, to be a particularly joyous occasion, certainly among my favorite holidays. On this day the Christmas decorations come out, and in discussing them I shall focus on the traditional Christmas tree. The traditional Christmas tree is not a real tree, but this does hold the traditional value of being the same tree every year for as long as I remember. Apparently, until I was two years old, we put up a real tree, but that year there was an issue with leaking water that persuaded us to acquire a fake tree. Many times we have considered returning to the real tree, but three factors have persuaded us otherwise, the first being the one I just mentioned. The second is fear of fire, especially considering the length of time between the First Day of Christmas and Christmas itself. The third is the fantastic Christmas village, which shall receive mention soon.
The Christmas tree has a base, a pole, and branches that must be applied individually each year. The base is bent and slightly mangled, and it must be wrestled if the pole is to stand straightly. From the branches, the pseudo pine needles fall off in number, making a festive mess on the floor, and these branches scratch the hands and arms, leaving festive scratches and rashes that itch with the Christmas spirit. I am perfectly serious when I say that I love it. Once the branches are applied, the star is mounted on top, which I understand many people feel should be done last. These people are wrong to trust such feelings; they have no fantastic Christmas village.
Once the tree is assembled in such a way that it looks like a real tree, it cries out for need of lights and beads. First come the delightfully colorful lights and then come strings of red, wooden beads. Lights, you see, are safer than candles, but candles do smell better. Alas, fir trees are no place for candles, whether they are real or not. As for the beads, I think they might be equivalent to the strange practice of stringing popping corn and wrapping it around the tree. Popping corn strikes me as a vulgar thing to put on something so proud and glorious as a Christmas tree, but these beads, among other stringable things I am sure, do ample justice to the aesthetics of Christmas. Now, one might suspect that ornaments would come next, but anyone like that does not have a fantastic Christmas village.
The fantastic Christmas village proved to be a bit minimalistic this year, but at no expense to fantasy. You see, the traditional Christmas tree is usually in a corner, but some furniture rearrangements necessitated that it move down the wall this year, at the expense of space around its base. Since the fantastic Christmas village stands at the base of the tree, the challenge presented by a diminished space is obvious, for over the last ten or more years a great many buildings have been accumulated. The first thing that had to be done, then, was to select the ones that would be included and the ones that would resume their places in the closet. These are those that I included this year: the clock tower, the train station, the city hall, the courthouse, the cathedral, the school, the book shop, the toy shop, the florist, the country store, the water mill, the barn, and a few houses, including one to accompany the barn. The municipal buildings and the train station are in the front. To their left are the shops, and to their right are the houses. In the back in the hills is the country, including such institutions as the farm, the water mill, and the school, for it is an old timey schoolhouse. The country store stands between the shops and the country. There are also tiny people and tiny trees to populate the fantastic Christmas village, from happy children to a happy snowman. It is truly fantastic.
Last of all are the ornaments, which generally consist of utterly meaningless trinkets, merely aesthetic objects, commemorations of memories and meaningful things, and family photographs. There is also one that never got its intended picture, but it just has the picture that came with it (which is pretty awful). I like to place it inconspicuously on the back of the tree.
Apart from the traditional tree, I would like to mention the small battalion of nutcrackers that guard the house at Christmastime. My personal nutcracker is naturally my favorite. He wears a kilt and holds a set of bagpipes. That of my brother is a golfer, clearly from Scotland. Two others are perfectly ordinary, and one is a monkey.
This is not all, but it is all I mean to relate. There are lights that go around the deck of the good ship house, livening up the river valley with Christmas spirit. There is the auxiliary tree, which lives next to the piano in the part of the house that takes itself more seriously. There are also poinsettias and a nativity to grace the mantle, divers candles and things to lurk in all places, and festive towels for drying the hands. These things I mention for a greater completeness, that the entirety of the Christmastime decor might be grasped. Lastly, we have a new snow globe this year, which I find particularly pleasing, as far as snow globes go. I conclude here, vanishing like a polar bear eating marshmallows in a blizzard.
Merry Christmastime!
30 November 2008
20 November 2008
Vigilante Dialogue
Happy World Philosophy Day, my friends! Today I will celebrate by composing a philosophical dialogue between Thomas Nagel, of "What is it like to be a bat?" fame, and Batman, of Batman fame.
Introduction.
It is nighttime. Thomas Nagel is sitting in his office at New York University. All is silent, but a shadow flashes across the room. Suddenly Professor Nagel is face to face with Batman, who hangs from the ceiling.
Batman: (always intensely) You don't know anything about being a bat, Nagel.
Nagel: (frightened) That was the point, and neither do you.
Batman: That's where you're wrong.
Nagel: Consciousness is a subjective experience, and you are no bat.
Batman: (lifting Nagel by his shirt) What does that have to do with it?
Nagel: You cannot know what it is like to be a bat without being one!
Batman: Who is more bat-like than me? I'm hanging from the ceiling! I spend my time in the Batcave, often on the Batcomputer! I'm nocturnal! I dress in black! I have wing extensions for gliding! I talk on the Batphone! I drive the Batmobile! I know what it's like to be a bat.
Nagel: No, you know what it is like for you to do bat things!
Batman: (throws Nagel down and leaps to the floor, landing on his feet) Doing bat things tells me what it's like to be a bat, Nagel. I am Batman!
Nagel: Yes, Batman...
Batman: (strikes Nagel across the face) I am Batman, and I know what it's like to be a bat.
Nagel: You are a man who knows what it is like to do bat things!
Batman: (strikes Nagel again) What I do defines who I am! I am Batman!
Nagel: (bleeding out the nose and mouth) Regardless of what you do, you have a subjective consciousness!
Batman: (kicks Nagel across the floor, into a wall) If you want to keep your subjective consciousness, concede that I know what it's like to be a bat.
Nagel: (moans in agony)
Batman: (stepping toward Nagel) Last chance.
Nagel: (cowering) You know what it is like...
Conclusion.
Batman disappears as silently as he entered.
Introduction.
It is nighttime. Thomas Nagel is sitting in his office at New York University. All is silent, but a shadow flashes across the room. Suddenly Professor Nagel is face to face with Batman, who hangs from the ceiling.
Batman: (always intensely) You don't know anything about being a bat, Nagel.
Nagel: (frightened) That was the point, and neither do you.
Batman: That's where you're wrong.
Nagel: Consciousness is a subjective experience, and you are no bat.
Batman: (lifting Nagel by his shirt) What does that have to do with it?
Nagel: You cannot know what it is like to be a bat without being one!
Batman: Who is more bat-like than me? I'm hanging from the ceiling! I spend my time in the Batcave, often on the Batcomputer! I'm nocturnal! I dress in black! I have wing extensions for gliding! I talk on the Batphone! I drive the Batmobile! I know what it's like to be a bat.
Nagel: No, you know what it is like for you to do bat things!
Batman: (throws Nagel down and leaps to the floor, landing on his feet) Doing bat things tells me what it's like to be a bat, Nagel. I am Batman!
Nagel: Yes, Batman...
Batman: (strikes Nagel across the face) I am Batman, and I know what it's like to be a bat.
Nagel: You are a man who knows what it is like to do bat things!
Batman: (strikes Nagel again) What I do defines who I am! I am Batman!
Nagel: (bleeding out the nose and mouth) Regardless of what you do, you have a subjective consciousness!
Batman: (kicks Nagel across the floor, into a wall) If you want to keep your subjective consciousness, concede that I know what it's like to be a bat.
Nagel: (moans in agony)
Batman: (stepping toward Nagel) Last chance.
Nagel: (cowering) You know what it is like...
Conclusion.
Batman disappears as silently as he entered.
19 November 2008
I Dream of Zombies
My friends, as long as we speak of interesting dreams, let me relate one of mine. This one passed through my thoughts on Sunday night, but my memory of it is imperfect. Some real people besides myself were there, but I do not recall their precise functions or locations, just as I no longer remember any context of the point at which I shall begin.
Where, then, shall I begin? Why at a swimming pool, of course! This, however, is no ordinary swimming pool. This one has a chair submerged about a third of the way down from the shallow end, which I add is about a foot in depth. The chair has thick and stout legs, a square seat, and an equally thick and stout back. I wonder for what purpose it is there. I suppose it must be for sitting. Now I am underwater with the chair. I wonder how one might sit in it for a long period of time, but I know that it is possible to do so. This question is never answered. The chair transforms into a platform structure of some kind. Now moving to the back of the swimming pool, I observe the depth markings. One says 300 ft. The next and last one says 400 ft. I wonder whether or not diving is permitted, not that I have any desire to go diving. I determine that 400 ft. is just the right depth to permit safe diving. The pool, however, is not safe for diving at all, since I notice that the 400 ft. deep deep end is only about two feet wide, with an enormous drop immediately beforehand. This is not cause for alarm, though, since there is a rope between the safe 400 ft. depth and the unsafe 300 ft. depth. Suddenly, though some fault of my own, the pool begins to drain, and all persons therein (whose numbers are few) must scramble out. At the bottom of the deepest part of the pool there are undead things, but since the water is drained, I am congratulated for having defeated them. On a side note, zombies in the pool was a real childhood fear of mine, so perhaps I am recalling something.
Having defeated this menace of the depths, I am struck with the realization that I must also defeat the menace above, which I suspect means there will be bats. I understand somehow that this means purging the attic of evil, never mind that there has been no attic anywhere thus far. Regardless, some dream people and I find our way to a house inhabited by a kindly old woman. It is violet in color and rather tall. The roof is covered in green shingles. We tell her that the attic must be purged of evil, so she brings out a metal extension ladder. There is an overhang over her front door, so we climb onto that. From there we raise the ladder up to the circular window of the attic, but we are forbidden entry. Fortunately, the kindly old woman knows what to do. We all climb down to the ground, and we notice that it is storming. The kindly old woman is making her way across her yard, which is a very dark green in color, toward a tree of similar hue. We urge her to return to us until the storm passes, but she is adamant. She refuses to even look back at us. Suddenly, lightening strikes, and I fear the worst. The woman was holding a fully extended, metal extension ladder vertically in the air, after all. Miraculously and irrationally, the lightening had struck the ground two feet or so to her left, and she did not even flinch. At last, she places the ladder against the tree, which I know will lead to the attic.
Climbing the ladder again, this time up into a secret passage high in a lonely tree, there emerges first a flying thing, resembling a bat, which quickly disappears, and a number of green people with oddly shaped noses from within the tree and behind me. The kindly old woman is gone. They are identified as Venezuelan futbol (that is, soccer) players, but it is not certain whether they form a team. At first they seem threatening, then they offer us some massive slices of what appears to be garlic bread from out their bubbling cauldron, the kind witches and cannibals use. We eat it, but it tastes strange, so it is my conclusion that we are eating the transubstantiated flesh of the kindly old woman. Thus we go back several steps in time so as to undo this tragedy, but we fall for the same trick. We do it again as the visions fade and I wake up.
I am not making this up. I could not do so if I tried.
Where, then, shall I begin? Why at a swimming pool, of course! This, however, is no ordinary swimming pool. This one has a chair submerged about a third of the way down from the shallow end, which I add is about a foot in depth. The chair has thick and stout legs, a square seat, and an equally thick and stout back. I wonder for what purpose it is there. I suppose it must be for sitting. Now I am underwater with the chair. I wonder how one might sit in it for a long period of time, but I know that it is possible to do so. This question is never answered. The chair transforms into a platform structure of some kind. Now moving to the back of the swimming pool, I observe the depth markings. One says 300 ft. The next and last one says 400 ft. I wonder whether or not diving is permitted, not that I have any desire to go diving. I determine that 400 ft. is just the right depth to permit safe diving. The pool, however, is not safe for diving at all, since I notice that the 400 ft. deep deep end is only about two feet wide, with an enormous drop immediately beforehand. This is not cause for alarm, though, since there is a rope between the safe 400 ft. depth and the unsafe 300 ft. depth. Suddenly, though some fault of my own, the pool begins to drain, and all persons therein (whose numbers are few) must scramble out. At the bottom of the deepest part of the pool there are undead things, but since the water is drained, I am congratulated for having defeated them. On a side note, zombies in the pool was a real childhood fear of mine, so perhaps I am recalling something.
Having defeated this menace of the depths, I am struck with the realization that I must also defeat the menace above, which I suspect means there will be bats. I understand somehow that this means purging the attic of evil, never mind that there has been no attic anywhere thus far. Regardless, some dream people and I find our way to a house inhabited by a kindly old woman. It is violet in color and rather tall. The roof is covered in green shingles. We tell her that the attic must be purged of evil, so she brings out a metal extension ladder. There is an overhang over her front door, so we climb onto that. From there we raise the ladder up to the circular window of the attic, but we are forbidden entry. Fortunately, the kindly old woman knows what to do. We all climb down to the ground, and we notice that it is storming. The kindly old woman is making her way across her yard, which is a very dark green in color, toward a tree of similar hue. We urge her to return to us until the storm passes, but she is adamant. She refuses to even look back at us. Suddenly, lightening strikes, and I fear the worst. The woman was holding a fully extended, metal extension ladder vertically in the air, after all. Miraculously and irrationally, the lightening had struck the ground two feet or so to her left, and she did not even flinch. At last, she places the ladder against the tree, which I know will lead to the attic.
Climbing the ladder again, this time up into a secret passage high in a lonely tree, there emerges first a flying thing, resembling a bat, which quickly disappears, and a number of green people with oddly shaped noses from within the tree and behind me. The kindly old woman is gone. They are identified as Venezuelan futbol (that is, soccer) players, but it is not certain whether they form a team. At first they seem threatening, then they offer us some massive slices of what appears to be garlic bread from out their bubbling cauldron, the kind witches and cannibals use. We eat it, but it tastes strange, so it is my conclusion that we are eating the transubstantiated flesh of the kindly old woman. Thus we go back several steps in time so as to undo this tragedy, but we fall for the same trick. We do it again as the visions fade and I wake up.
I am not making this up. I could not do so if I tried.
16 November 2008
The Wisdom of Mme. Faux-Sophiste
As "Pheidippotamus" might have indicated, it is a semi-goal of mine to build myself a little world around "Velocipedes and Dirigibles." A couple of Wednesdays ago I made another addition to the literature, but I neglected to post it. It is this:
The Wisdom of Mme. Faux-Sophiste
Know you not what knowing not will do
for knowing what to see
and knowing how and knowing who
knows how and what to be
besides a knowing one who knows
no seeing but a thought
of one who sees and then burrows
to know what has been wrought
not seeing but not knowing much
but one and all to know:
not foxes, but hedgehogs and such,
and an armadillo?
The Wisdom of Mme. Faux-Sophiste
Know you not what knowing not will do
for knowing what to see
and knowing how and knowing who
knows how and what to be
besides a knowing one who knows
no seeing but a thought
of one who sees and then burrows
to know what has been wrought
not seeing but not knowing much
but one and all to know:
not foxes, but hedgehogs and such,
and an armadillo?
03 November 2008
I believe in fires at midnight.
"Me, I'll sit and write this love song, as I all too seldom do, build a little fire this midnight, it's good to be back home with you." -"Fire at Midnight," Jethro Tull
In reverie of the splendorous nighttime and of its splendid array of stars and of the smiling moon ascending over the treetops, I present a musical composition for solo pianoforte. Furthermore, let me commemorate therewith the the grand fire almost-at-midnight and its plumes of steam illuminated by the moonlight and the feel and the scent of the calm and cold night from the fire to the field to the swing set. Also, let me ignore, as I did at the time, the horseplay of the rabble. In short, I reflect on a good memory, the glorious conclusion of an excellent day, and on returning, far beyond expectation, to the profound and pleasing sight on which I mused in March.
This musical composition is a nocturne, which my handy pocket music dictionary assures me is a "dreamy and romantic" composition or "a piece resembling a serenade, to be played at night in the open air." Of course, it is nothing like a serenade, for serenades can be accomplished by greasy mariachi bands and nocturnes cannot possibly be accomplished thus. Of course, that is not to say a nocturne is not suitable for serenading; indeed, I think its character is far more suitable for serenading than a serenade could ever hope to be.
The story of this nocturne begins on the way home from the middle of the woods, which really is an accurate description of the place. Besides the road and the few houses thereupon, there were truly nothing but trees for a few miles around. The satellite maps told me so. This was a happy thing to learn, I thought, and I still think. Now, in the car, besides watching the rest of the convoy, exchanging words with my comrades, and reading the ridiculous names of certain towns and roads on the way, there was time for quiet reflection. In the course of this quiet reflection, I got out my book of notes and letters to write out a brief plan for the musical composition that I have now finished. In the course of the next week I would begin work on it, throw most of it out, abandon most of the lunatic (that is, lunar) plan (as I knew I would), and finally find the direction the music at last took, which would take a second week to see to its conclusion. Last Wednesday I scrivened the last of the shorthand in blue ink (my chosen color for this piece, because of the moonlight), and on Friday began to put all the actual notes into the computer, editing as many shortcomings I could see to improve. This was done with immense care, for I long ago (relatively speaking) ceased to consider myself to be working for myself.
If I may digress for a moment, I saw two enormous turkey vultures today from a mere several feet away. It was pretty neato, but I shall compose them neither a nocturne nor a diurne. This happened because I was so smooth in grooving over to them.
Now, without further ado, and there has been much ado, here is the music, which can be heard by following the link on the left of the page under Mine Artistry, but I advise listening over hearing:
In reverie of the splendorous nighttime and of its splendid array of stars and of the smiling moon ascending over the treetops, I present a musical composition for solo pianoforte. Furthermore, let me commemorate therewith the the grand fire almost-at-midnight and its plumes of steam illuminated by the moonlight and the feel and the scent of the calm and cold night from the fire to the field to the swing set. Also, let me ignore, as I did at the time, the horseplay of the rabble. In short, I reflect on a good memory, the glorious conclusion of an excellent day, and on returning, far beyond expectation, to the profound and pleasing sight on which I mused in March.
This musical composition is a nocturne, which my handy pocket music dictionary assures me is a "dreamy and romantic" composition or "a piece resembling a serenade, to be played at night in the open air." Of course, it is nothing like a serenade, for serenades can be accomplished by greasy mariachi bands and nocturnes cannot possibly be accomplished thus. Of course, that is not to say a nocturne is not suitable for serenading; indeed, I think its character is far more suitable for serenading than a serenade could ever hope to be.
The story of this nocturne begins on the way home from the middle of the woods, which really is an accurate description of the place. Besides the road and the few houses thereupon, there were truly nothing but trees for a few miles around. The satellite maps told me so. This was a happy thing to learn, I thought, and I still think. Now, in the car, besides watching the rest of the convoy, exchanging words with my comrades, and reading the ridiculous names of certain towns and roads on the way, there was time for quiet reflection. In the course of this quiet reflection, I got out my book of notes and letters to write out a brief plan for the musical composition that I have now finished. In the course of the next week I would begin work on it, throw most of it out, abandon most of the lunatic (that is, lunar) plan (as I knew I would), and finally find the direction the music at last took, which would take a second week to see to its conclusion. Last Wednesday I scrivened the last of the shorthand in blue ink (my chosen color for this piece, because of the moonlight), and on Friday began to put all the actual notes into the computer, editing as many shortcomings I could see to improve. This was done with immense care, for I long ago (relatively speaking) ceased to consider myself to be working for myself.
If I may digress for a moment, I saw two enormous turkey vultures today from a mere several feet away. It was pretty neato, but I shall compose them neither a nocturne nor a diurne. This happened because I was so smooth in grooving over to them.
Now, without further ado, and there has been much ado, here is the music, which can be heard by following the link on the left of the page under Mine Artistry, but I advise listening over hearing:
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