Friday, March 31, 2006
A Stonehenge moment
The long axis of our house is oriented more or less east-west, so a major moment in the spring co
mes when the sun has progressed to the point where the morning light first comes directly in the north windows. I didn't actually catch that day, but today can't have been too far away, judging by the tiny sliver of light on the window frame here.(Not that we use the position of the sun to govern our horticultural activities, but this means it's almost time to haul the giant ficus tree you see in the picture out to its summer home in the yard. )
I waited 10 minute or so this morning for the sun to enter the window so I could take this picture, which was a minor inconvenience. But it occurred to me while I was waiting how much more invested the builders of Stonehenge or Teotihuacán must have been in waiting for that first shaft of light to fall at some designated point. What if you'd humped a couple of dozen giant monoliths all the way from Wales, heaved them aloft, and then on the first frickin' solstice it was raining? That's enough to make a person think about human sacrifice.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
First day of spring, my foot
Still cold enough for one more ice candle this season.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
A commencement address nobody asked me to give
I went to a prep school outside Detroit. Its seal featured Acestes, a character from the Aeniad, kneeling on one knee, drawing a bow with the arrow pointed straight up. This was subscribed with the motto “Aim High,” which we understood was what we were supposed to do. (We were also admonished, though without illustration, to “remember who you are and what you represent,” a lot to ask of adolescents with a shaky understanding of the first and none at all of the second.)
Acestes, or at least who he was and what he represented, was an important figure for those of who were still impressed by dead white Greeks. His power was undiminished even by the work of some uncultured lout at the athletic clothing factory, who made one batch of sweatshirts in which Acestes wore a feather on his head. (Hey, any naked guy in Michigan with a bow and arrow is an Indian, am I right?)
This was the deal: Acestes and three others were in an archery contest. A bird was tethered to the end of a high pole. The first archer’s shot split the end of the pole. The second severed the cord. The third shot the bird in flight. Acestes, having no target left to shoot at, was undaunted. He knelt and sent his arrow as high as he could, straight up into the air. The gods, impressed by his bold spirit, tipped the arrow with fire, and when it returned to earth the judges awarded him the prize.
What a pernicious story!
Because mostly that isn’t how it happens. Zeus is only at the contest to keep Hera off his back, and is deeply involved in a fantasy about a couple of Danaids in Accounting. Artemis keeps looking at her watch. Hermes, always a little dim, has a hard time understanding the point of the contest, much less how to score it. After the bird gets shot they assign a couple of demi-gods to hang around until the credits roll, and slope off to happy hour at the Olympus Marriott. No arrow gets tipped with fire.
Most of you will find, if you haven’t already, that the gods’ attention wanders. Being first in line counts for a lot. Grand gestures end up looking stupid. The plan that’s just crazy enough to work doesn’t.
So you pull your arrow out of the dirt – maybe you try to pretend it isn’t yours or you were just clowning around – you wipe it off, go home, nuke the lasagna, get up tomorrow and go to work. And the same thing is probably going to happen next time. Live with it.
So what am I saying? That you should aim low? Aim moderately? Remember who you are but forget what you represent?
You’re the graduates. You figure it out.
Don’t shoot the arrow. Or shoot it if you want to, shoot it straight up. But shoot to feel it leave your fingers, hiss of the feathers past the bow, shoot because it’s the only way you can watch an arrow fly, shoot because it’s more fun than not shooting.
No gods. No fire. No prize. Nothing but arrow.
Acestes, or at least who he was and what he represented, was an important figure for those of who were still impressed by dead white Greeks. His power was undiminished even by the work of some uncultured lout at the athletic clothing factory, who made one batch of sweatshirts in which Acestes wore a feather on his head. (Hey, any naked guy in Michigan with a bow and arrow is an Indian, am I right?)This was the deal: Acestes and three others were in an archery contest. A bird was tethered to the end of a high pole. The first archer’s shot split the end of the pole. The second severed the cord. The third shot the bird in flight. Acestes, having no target left to shoot at, was undaunted. He knelt and sent his arrow as high as he could, straight up into the air. The gods, impressed by his bold spirit, tipped the arrow with fire, and when it returned to earth the judges awarded him the prize.
What a pernicious story!
Because mostly that isn’t how it happens. Zeus is only at the contest to keep Hera off his back, and is deeply involved in a fantasy about a couple of Danaids in Accounting. Artemis keeps looking at her watch. Hermes, always a little dim, has a hard time understanding the point of the contest, much less how to score it. After the bird gets shot they assign a couple of demi-gods to hang around until the credits roll, and slope off to happy hour at the Olympus Marriott. No arrow gets tipped with fire.
Most of you will find, if you haven’t already, that the gods’ attention wanders. Being first in line counts for a lot. Grand gestures end up looking stupid. The plan that’s just crazy enough to work doesn’t.
So you pull your arrow out of the dirt – maybe you try to pretend it isn’t yours or you were just clowning around – you wipe it off, go home, nuke the lasagna, get up tomorrow and go to work. And the same thing is probably going to happen next time. Live with it.
So what am I saying? That you should aim low? Aim moderately? Remember who you are but forget what you represent?
You’re the graduates. You figure it out.
Don’t shoot the arrow. Or shoot it if you want to, shoot it straight up. But shoot to feel it leave your fingers, hiss of the feathers past the bow, shoot because it’s the only way you can watch an arrow fly, shoot because it’s more fun than not shooting.
No gods. No fire. No prize. Nothing but arrow.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Turkeys in the mist
Our office is besieged by turkeys, and I mean that in the most literal way.
We are in a small office park, with a small patch of woods behind us, and a larger patch of reservation land not far away. This seems to be habitat enough for a flock of a couple of dozen wild turkeys, seen here nesting in the trees between the parking lot and the road. (Photo courtesy Harvey Cohen.)
Look at one of these turkeys up close – which is easy to do since they apparently have no fear of humans – and you get it about birds being little, recent dinosaurs. They are truly saurian of mien. Aggressive of character, too. Adult males stand about 3 or 4 feet high, and there are many stories of turkey attacks on joggers, mail carriers, etc. I came out to the parking lot once and a couple of them were hanging around my car. I would not have been surprised had one said “Yo, man. Nice car. Be a shame if anything happened to such a nice car, wouldn’t it?”
Civilization doesn't seem to bother them. The office is not exactly in the wilderness - we're less than 10 miles from downtown Boston as the turkey flies. (I watched a couple fly into the roosting tree a couple of days ago, and they are surprisingly agile fliers for their size.) Not only are they in the suburbs, but there was a wild turkey living in Cambridge a couple of years ago. We saw this guy on my neighbor’s front porch at about the same time, and we’re in a pretty urban neighborhood. I think we need to adjust this idea that nature is something that is out there, and we are something that is in here.Sunday, March 12, 2006
The Perfect Joke
Something in this morning's paper reminded me of a somewhat passive quest I've been on: I want to hear the perfect joke.
Needless to say, we need a definition here. The perfect joke isn't the same as the funniest possible joke - although that's an interesting concept. The perfect joke I am searching for (or, to be more precise, hoping to hear without going to a lot of trouble to find it) would (a) be very funny and (b) have a one-word punch line, that one word being either "yes" or "no."
My thinking is that many jokes depend on the sudden contradiction of our expectations. Henny Youngman's "take my wife...please" is funny because he builds the expectation that the phrase "take my wife" means "let's use my wife as an example" only to contradict it in the single word "please", and the half-beat pause that precedes it.
So the perfect joke would set up an expectation that we are so sure is correct that we could not entertain the possiblility that its opposite could be true. And the expectation is such that its 180 degree contradiction is actually funny.
If I make my fortune inventing dynamite or something, I will endow a prize for the creation or discovery of this joke, but meantime, email me if you've heard it. You shall be rewarded with deep gratitude.
Needless to say, we need a definition here. The perfect joke isn't the same as the funniest possible joke - although that's an interesting concept. The perfect joke I am searching for (or, to be more precise, hoping to hear without going to a lot of trouble to find it) would (a) be very funny and (b) have a one-word punch line, that one word being either "yes" or "no."
My thinking is that many jokes depend on the sudden contradiction of our expectations. Henny Youngman's "take my wife...please" is funny because he builds the expectation that the phrase "take my wife" means "let's use my wife as an example" only to contradict it in the single word "please", and the half-beat pause that precedes it.
So the perfect joke would set up an expectation that we are so sure is correct that we could not entertain the possiblility that its opposite could be true. And the expectation is such that its 180 degree contradiction is actually funny.
If I make my fortune inventing dynamite or something, I will endow a prize for the creation or discovery of this joke, but meantime, email me if you've heard it. You shall be rewarded with deep gratitude.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Vermin II - The Bride of Mickey
I spoke too soon, it appears. The high tech, humane mousetrap actually caught a mouse, and I suppose relatively humanely. The way this thing works, the mouse goes in this little opening in the middle, attracted by the peanut butter, steps on the trigger, and a spring-wound revolving door propels it into a holding cell with air holes and a little glass window. For conducting interrogations.
So there it was, with its cute little ears, and cute little nose going all breathe breathe breathe.
And there was the ugly question: what do you do with a mouse? Our option was to take the trap down to a patch of woods two blocks away, and dump it out of the box in some dry leaves, and watch it scamper away, casting a reproachful glance over its shoulder. (I had to kill a little time in order to let a mother and her two small children pass, because there was no way I was going to make her explain what the man was doing with the mouse. I figure my karma's already in the crapper for the day - no sense bumming out complete strangers.) (And yes, I'm making up the reproachful glance.)
At this point one of three things are likely:
1) It makes its way back to our house. (This apparently happens a lot. Someone with time on their hands has tagged mice and they home over relatively long distances.)
2) It makes its way to a neighbor's house, and I've given them a gift that keeps on giving
3) Something eats it.
We put the stupid trap away.
So there it was, with its cute little ears, and cute little nose going all breathe breathe breathe.
And there was the ugly question: what do you do with a mouse? Our option was to take the trap down to a patch of woods two blocks away, and dump it out of the box in some dry leaves, and watch it scamper away, casting a reproachful glance over its shoulder. (I had to kill a little time in order to let a mother and her two small children pass, because there was no way I was going to make her explain what the man was doing with the mouse. I figure my karma's already in the crapper for the day - no sense bumming out complete strangers.) (And yes, I'm making up the reproachful glance.)
At this point one of three things are likely:
1) It makes its way back to our house. (This apparently happens a lot. Someone with time on their hands has tagged mice and they home over relatively long distances.)
2) It makes its way to a neighbor's house, and I've given them a gift that keeps on giving
3) Something eats it.
We put the stupid trap away.
