The Arrogant Emu

Now one respect in which I’ve always admired the blogmass is your ability to give advice on various questions. In fact, before I start asking my next question, I’ll report on the status of the previous one, which was about exercise. I took Porter’s sisters’ program, which featured quite remarkable pictures of Canadian housewives from what looked like the early 50s, combined that with any of Tim’s calisthenics that didn’t require jumping, and used that on alternate days with Julia’s sequence. I was quite faithful; didn’t miss more than two days in a week for two and a half months, but then unfortunately travelling around disrupted the pattern and I have yet to reestablish it. I will try when returned to the US, though.

And now the new question. I have a mind to acquire, when I return to the US, a laptop computer and a cell phone. The main things I anticipate using the computer for are writing, playing movies, internet, budget-keeping, and possibly image-editing. I hate phones and wish to avoid them as much as possible, but since I need some way for people, particularly prospective employers, to contact me, I figure I can’t very well avoid it. I prefer texting to talking, but I do dearly love the reminder function, where you can program it to beep at a certain time to alert you of things you have to do.

Price is definitely a factor. I’m looking for something cheap and durable, not necessarily something flashy - unless you can persuade me that the flash is worth having.

Any thoughts?

I dreamed in singspiel last night, and only the fact that I haven’t got much to say is keeping me from continuing it this morning. My exit interview is coming up, thought - I hope to have expunged the melody by then. Or do you suppose it’s too late to get whack-evac’ed?

I have a niece!

Let’s say that you have principles, a moral code which mandates certain actions and forbids others. Which is better: to decide and believe that you will adhere to these principles and plan your actions accordingly, or to decide and believe that you may break these principles and take steps in order to mitigate the damage to yourself and other should you break them?

I know it sounds like I’m talking about teenagers and sex, but actually I was thinking about Nate’s post a while back on Guantanamo.

I dreamed that in the middle of the twenty-second century, popular music began to run short of metaphors. Everyone had always assumed that cultural area (the length of popular memory multiplied by the breadth of products available for consumption) would remain basically the same, but eventually the sheer number of pop songs being turned out resulted in a shortage of metaphors.

Some metaphors are public domain, no doubt - music, weather, dancing - but the more specific you get, the more unacceptable it is to repeat it. Perhaps in this future, people go about copyrighting their metaphors.

This dream was inspired, no doubt, but the fact that the night before I had finally heard a popular song which was comparing love to an umbrella. And I was wondering how long it will be before one can write another popular song comparing love to an umbrella. Two years? Five?

The title is what I thought the chorus was saying until I finally figured out that the singer was pronouncing the word ‘Umbrella’ with four syllables.

Question:

What advantages, if any, does man have over machine?

Okay, so I have found what really looks like pretty much my dream program.

Now I just have to figure out how on earth I would pay (or hopefully get someone else to pay) for three years worth of study in London. Also how likely I would be to be able to find employment.

But seriously, if I can - I will revise my five-year plan to a three-year plan.

Jeremy and Elane shared a bed; it terrified both of them and for the same reason. Both of them had a horror that their spouse would die in bed, that they would wake up one morning and find the wam and living body of their constant companion gone cold and empty. They didn’t consciously take account of that fear, and why should they? They were decades from the age in which sudden natural death might be reasonably expected. But the fear was there all the same, it glinted across the surface of nightmares, it manifested itself in a curious and unexplained reluctance to go to bed.

Jeremy was afraid of the physical fact of death, Elane was afraid of sudden and irreversible changes. Jeremy didn’t mind dead things as long as they were at a reasonable distance; the closer they got, the more uncomfortable he became. When Elane was eight, her great-uncle had died in his sleep, and she had never forgotten her great-aunt mildly bewailing the way that they had gone to bed, had said their goodnights as usual, and had never said anything more in this world. It preoccupied her, it returned to preoccupy her twenty years later when she herself married and slept beside her husband. Where was one safer, better guarded against the shocks of the world, than in bed asleep with one’s spouse? And yet the shock could come. ‘Good night,’ she said, ‘and goodbye.’ A talisman against surprise. It was a habit that acquired the force of superstition with her. She’d only said it out loud once, the ‘Goodbye’ had produced such a disturbance of mind in her husband (and for completely the wrong reasons; he thought she meant was the one who might suddenly leave) that she deemed it wiser to say it only in her mind. ‘Good night, wife,’ said Jeremy, reaching fondly and fearfully for her breathing bulk. ‘Good night,’ answered Elane, flipping on to her front to sleep. ‘Goodbye,’ she privately added, safeguarding them against the sudden surprise for one more night together.

On Saturday mornings my cats and I are much the same kind of creature. All three of us sprawl about on the bed, acediating in the fact that no one has anywhere particular to go or anything particular to do. Occasionally I reach over and scratch one of them behind the ears, occasionally the big cat comes over and washes the little cat’’s face. Sometimes, with a heavy sigh, I stretch and roll over to find the two cats staring at me. ‘A little more of this,’ they seem to say, ‘and you also will learn to be a cat.’

But then I get up to write these observations down, and my cats get up to remind me that they would like some food, and the world returns to its usual order.

The evening call to prayer sets off every pack of dogs in the city.

One cell phone service is offering a Ramadan special - alerts for every prayer of the day, plus reminders when the fast begins and ends.

A saw a guy in front of a mosque bailing out the street. Well, to be fair, there was a large puddle right in front of the door, but it amused me to see him scooping the water out with a bowl and flinging it away.