Minister Nkoloso's ill-starred Vision

Ever heard tell of Zambia's former "Minister of Space Research", Edward Nkoloso? He dreamt big following independence in 1964, as reported in this article from Time's October '64 archives:

During the independence festivities only one noted Zambian failed to share in all the harmony. He is Edward Mukuka Nkoloso, a grade-school science teacher and the director of Zambia's National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy, who claimed the goings-on interfered with his space program to beat the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the moon. Already Nkoloso is training twelve Zambian astronauts, including a curvaceous 16-year-old girl, by spinning them around a tree in an oil drum and teaching them to walk on their hands, "the only way humans can walk on the moon."

And yet it is difficult to learn much of the outcome of this upstart space program. Below is an article gleaned from THE GETTYSBURG TIMES - August 18, 1965. It reads like an SNL sketch (I especially like the "curb your enthusiasm" counsel) :

Zambians Have Plan To Put African On Moon But Problems Mount Up
By DENNIS LEE ROYLE LUSAKA, Zambia (AP)

You have no idea what problems you run into when you're trying to put the first African on the moon. The finances are slow, the would-be astronauts are balky, and there's a matter of biology, too. Zambia is a small country in the heart of Africa. Its Minister of Space Research, as he describes himself, is Edward Mukuka Nkoloso. "We are delaying our plans to plant the Zambian flag on the moon," Nkoloso says.

ONLY TEMPORARY

"But this is only a temporary setback. A reply to my request to the United Nations for a loan of million and a further billion from private foreign sources hasn't yet been received." The toothless little space enthusiast flutters around in a faded torn, red and green cloak His 10-man team of astronaut has revolted against his tortuous space training program.

TEMPERAMENTAL STARS

"After the worldwide television showing and press publicit of our astronauts in training received thousands of letters from foreign countries," he said. "But my spacemen thought they were film stars. "They demanded payment and refused to continue with our program of rolling down hills in oil drums and my special tree swinging method of simulating space weightlessness." Zambia's No. l space girl, Matha Mwamba, completed the full course of 50 hill rolls and tree swings, but now she pregnant. She has returned to her parents who have, according to Nkoloso, talked her out of continuing her space training.

ON DRINKING SPREE

"Two of my best men went on drinking spree a month ago and haven't been seen since," he said. "Another of my astronauts has joined a local tribal song and dance group. He says he makes more money swinging from the top of a 40-foot pole." Dejected though he is, Nkoloso has not entirely abandoned his ideas to get the first African on the moon. Government sources say, however, that President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia has asked him to curb his enthusiasm.

WOULD JOIN U.S.

Despite his setbacks, Nkoloso maintains he could have the Zambian flag on the moon in a few years if the money for his ideas is forthcoming. Nkoloso would like to join me
in my country's space exploration program, he said. "I'd be most happy. But let's get one thing straight. I step on the moon and hoist the Zambian flag first."

More Southern Magic

Just off the phone with our man down in Robbins, North Carolina, who received my letter to him accounting for my side of this ridiculous story. "Wanted to talk to you about how to send this back to you without endangering the memories on the ... memory and everything," said the message, and the marvelous CFM actually proposed going down to Walmart and printing off all the pictures in case something happened in transit. I told him he might as well send it along and we'll trust in good fortune this final step. I sincerely hope we haven't heard the last of him.

One final note - he informed me that his family boarded the train at Southern Pines, North Carolina. According to Amtrak, that's a (scheduled) 5 hours and 42 minutes from Savannah. So the camera basically sat undisturbed for over 6 hours until the story's heros emerged.

It is a concatenation of events that continues to boggle the mind.

Plethora of Goodness

How I do love thee, World Wide Web. Let me count but three newfound ways (via Time's current 50 coolest list)

(1) The Human Clock.

(2) Pandora.

(3) Jackson Pollock.

Ah, yes. How did people manage before your resplendency?

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

Was it Farley Llewellyn? The hidden gems in wikipedia are truly delightful. Our world has so many bizarre and irreverent stories.

No Thank You, Mr. McAdoo

liDoubtful if I would have watched the Emmys had I not been cruelly hungover, but at least was rewarded by one of the finer award show acceptance speeches. Gregory Thomas Garcia, who won for best writing (My Name is Earl) listed off those who he most definitely did not wish to share the award with:

My eighth-grade social studies teacher who told me to sit down and shut up because I wasn't funny. No, thank you Mr. McAdoo.

We can only hope that McAdoo had tuned in for the broadcast...

Fat Teddy

At dueling pianos, er dueling keyboards, in Dartmouth. They played the Layla coda, and flipped Dueling Banjos to Brown Eyed Girl to Another Saturday Night.

Most funnily, I wrote "Black Betty" out on a Fiver, and the long overdue request was faithfully sung through, without a finger hitting the keys.

Blogging live from the Blackberry. Surely my downfall. And he JUST launched into Georgia on my mind, I mean like as I typed the o in downfall. Coincidences haunt me.

A Very Excellent Piece of Villainy

Another short week, and tonight a quiet Friday. Hilarious plans in the works for the morrow, though, as a newspaper advert yesterday brought news of "Dueling Pianos" at a celtic pub across the Harbour. A Nova Scotia native set to take on "European Champion" (can there be such a thing -ed.) Barry Colson of Norway. How can that be anything but hilarious?

Read Titus for the first time last week - and must confess to finding the extremity of Aaron's villainy a bit of a comic riot. Truly, the first in the long line of Dr. Evils. Below is an excerpt after he is caught (in Act 5 Scene 1) lamenting only that he cannot continue tormenting the world's inhabitants. "Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves/And set them upright at their dear friends' doors." It is the "oft" that makes that so humorous. Ah, Master Shakespeare. Happy TFI Friday.

LUCIUS

Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?

AARON

Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day--and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse,--
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death,
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,
Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.

ducks

Random thursday patio comment...

"Man, I wish I was a duck. They are FLYING."

Oh it is going to be sad to leave this summer. Proper karmic retribution for an incorrigible punster.

My Favorite Sentence in the English Language

Translated from the Turkish (naturally) and a marvelous poem by Atoal Behramoglu (now there is a last name) entitled "I've Learned Some Things".

Never exchange for anything the pleasure of a glass of water.

And maybe only those who live near the desert, or are the most devoted of alcoholics, can claim full knowledge of its truth.

The full poem is, as follows. The idea of dropping exhausted from the smelling of a flower is also a fantastic image:

I've learned some things from having lived:
If you're alive, experience
one thing with all your power
Your beloved should be worn out from being kissed
And you should drop exhausted from the smelling of a flower

A person can gaze at the sky for hours
Can gaze for hours at a bird, a child, the sea
To live on the earth is to become part of it
To strike down roots that won't pull free

If you cling to anything, tightly hold a friend
Fight for something with every muscle, whole body, all your passion
And if you lay yourself for a time on the warm beach
Let yourself rest like a grain of sand, a leaf, a stone

To your utmost, listen to every beautiful song
As though filling all the self with sound and melody
One should plunge head-first into life
As one dives from a cliff into the emerald sea

Distant lands should draw you, people you don't know
To read every book, know other's lives, you should be burning
Never exchange for anything the pleasure of a glass of water
No matter how much the joy, your life should be filled with yearning

You should know sorrow, honorably, with all your being
Because the pains, like joys, make a person grow
Your blood should mingle in the great circulation of life
And in your veins life's endless fresh blood should flow

I've learned some things from having lived:
If you're alive, experience largely, merge with rivers, heavens, cosmos
For what we call living is a gift given to life
And life is a gift bestowed upon us

All Your Magic Are Belong To Us

How good is Wikipedia? So Good. For Great Justice.

Goldi Poldi Halleluja

(in response to an anonymous Oxford muse query - what is everyone listening to right now?)

"I have recently downloaded and am listening to a song first heard at the World Cup this late June. On the back of a whim and cheap flight and on impossibly short notice, I flew from Canada over to Germany and spent 10 days visiting old friends in Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin, cheering on the host nation and (of course) England. The atmosphere was electric, no better than afterwatching Germany beat Argentina with 10,000 Germanfans in the makeshift stadium built in the shadow of the Reichstag, and then heading to party on the Brandenburg Gate Fan Mile with my old classmate and Berlin resident, the 6'7" Torsten Schadendorf.

There was this song, in this tent - techno, repetitive, incessant. It was really just the chanting of a player's name, set to enthusiastic music. Far from their best player, just the young 18 year old second striker, born in Poland, who happened to be in the right place at the right time for a few passes from the superior and experienced Klose. And here were hundreds, thousands of people screaming and dancing to his name at the end, as it played over and over, as if in some mosh pit.

Lu-lu-lu, Lukas Podolsi.

The absurdity of this song's very existence made it all the better. It was a country's barbaric, elated yawp. Listening to it now, in an office cubicle back home, I am reminded of wondrous memories, of yet more travel on the road, and how the best moments in life are often those most divorced from any tangible reality or rationality, suggesting just a feeling of inexplicable momentum and dynamism. That strange, marvellous, and fortunate accidents are surely in store. Soon.

Lu-lu-lu, Lukas Podolski. Honestly."

Khayyam

The long-dead poets make it sound so simple. All the more reason to live their words in spirit, even as we cannot:


Oh, plagued no more with Human or Divine,
To-morrow's tangle to itself resign,
And lose your fingers in the tresses of
The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.

Tengo Resaca

Ayer me cogi una borrachera tremenda. Hoy voy a dormir. Manana mas.

Physical Memory

Consider a girl, randomly met, who believes and argues that the definition of making out involves taking off your shirt. Consider the guy in the tent who brought Laurention crayons. Consider my cousin's unsaid pickup line ("have you ever been fucked by a Floyd" - and no his name is not Floyd). Consider the fact that never before have I made a girl on the dance floor squeal with such delight. Consider the sport of sandal golf. Consider that the immense desire to listen to Smokey Robinson's Tracks of my Tears would have such dire consequences at the end. Consider. Just another classic Friday.

This Year's Winner

Whim.

Aware that this may officially mark the year when the annual "most beautiful word in the English language" contest became more about choosing simply my favorite of the entries than the technically beautiful, I still cannot resist the selection of whim. A fancy. A sudden desire. The capricious idea. I too wish to fly to the moon on a whimsy.

Salacious was close ("a salacious rooster of a little man"), and the definition of Gallant is almost beyond compare ("a paramour"), but it has been a most whimsical summer. I so love the English language, that it has a word such as WHIM. This is my conclusion. It is a word almost impossible to say without smiling, as well as being a fairly decent four-letter description of many of these Friday nights. Happy days, boys, as the Ryanair stewardess once insisted over Guinness at Oliver St. John Gogarty's in Dublin. Happy fuckin' days.

Her Sun-Bright Eye

From the Two Gentlemen, the first play ever I saw in Stratford. The sun shines brightly on this marvellous Friday afternoon. We shall have recourse to vice and Rum and Coke by night right soon (The day was sultry. And the late-night snark hung in the air like Spanish Moss off a Savannah oak tree...) Somewhere, DJ Phil smiles and is readying the leeches.

DUKE

There is a lady in Verona here
Whom I affect; but she is nice and coy
And nought esteems my aged eloquence:
Now therefore would I have thee to my tutor--
For long agone I have forgot to court;
Besides, the fashion of the time is changed--
How and which way I may bestow myself
To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.

VALENTINE

Win her with gifts, if she respect not words:
Dumb jewels often in their silent kind
More than quick words do move a woman's mind.

DUKE

But she did scorn a present that I sent her.

VALENTINE

A woman sometimes scorns what best contents her.
Send her another; never give her o'er;
For scorn at first makes after-love the more.
If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,
But rather to beget more love in you:
If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone;
For why, the fools are mad, if left alone.
Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;
For 'get you gone,' she doth not mean 'away!'
Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;
Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

DUKE

But she I mean is promised by her friends
Unto a youthful gentleman of worth,
And kept severely from resort of men,
That no man hath access by day to her.

VALENTINE

Why, then, I would resort to her by night.

DUKE

Ay, but the doors be lock'd and keys kept safe,
That no man hath recourse to her by night.

VALENTINE

What lets but one may enter at her window?

DUKE

Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,
And built so shelving that one cannot climb it
Without apparent hazard of his life.

VALENTINE
Why then, a ladder quaintly made of cords,
To cast up, with a pair of anchoring hooks,
Would serve to scale another Hero's tower,
So bold Leander would adventure it.

DUKE

Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood,
Advise me where I may have such a ladder.

VALENTINE

When would you use it? pray, sir, tell me that.

DUKE

This very night; for Love is like a child,
That longs for every thing that he can come by.

VALENTINE

By seven o'clock I'll get you such a ladder.

Yesterday's Invention

My luck with digital cameras appears to have taken a dramatic, serendipitous, and wholly remarkable turn for the better - one that makes up for the perils that beset the first few at a stroke.

I fear the tale cannot be told properly but over beverages of the alcoholic variety, as it really must conclude with a spirited toasting to its unknown hero, Clifton Marley. The depth and strangeness of the connections are explained somewhat here, while here may you find a copy of the letter mailed last week by the camera's discoveror. To complete the puzzle, below is the text of the initial bottled message that, perhaps, floats on in the Pacific waters. The fateful picture is placed in its proper context (address removed).

The irony of its use in this caper to return the camera to me is pretty damn hilarious. The world still has an unbridled power to amaze. To say that this original letter had a "widely uncertain future" is understated back in May - if I had known what was in store then, how could one ever have believed it?

May 6, 2006
Scheherazade (and the finder of this note)

Here goes a flyer... let's see how this message fares. My flight leaves home for Maui in a few short hours, and though sitting on the beach for sunset I can see the airport tower in the distance and will walk there when darkness falls.

I so love listening to the sweet, repetitive lullaby of the waves, and the wind whistling along the beach in tune warms both body and soul. I hope you have found similar comfort wherever your travels took you.

Strange writing a letter that you (or anyone) will likely never read. That seems to call for greater import to the words - some grand commitment or prounouncement, and alas I have none to offer. I have so enjoyed my time out here in Hawaii, and will return with a sense of genuine personal satisfaction, lots of reflection, acceptance, and future dreams forged here I am not going to let myself forget.

I read recently of a priest who sermoned at length about the glory of a God who had yet to invent tomorrow. I love the romantic notion inherent in that level of uncertainty that truly anything can happen next. I could turn and walk back to town instead of boarding the plane, or move wherever. This letter also has a widely uncertain future... it could be found tomorrow or in 10 years or even spend an infinite amount of time bobbing thousands of miles through the Pacific. The randomness of these waves and the generosity of you - the next reader of these words - will determine its fate. Make it a good one.

Email Three

Of all the blogger profiles out there - only one other listed "open to suggestions" under the "interests" category. And what a profile it is, a supposedly 104 year old cat breeder from Daytona Beach. The accompanying photo is simply hilarous. So to is the blog's singular focus on Kravchenko Siberian Kittens. I decided tonight that a few futher suggestions were in order, hence the following:

L.

Noticed on a slow day of Internet surfing that you are the only other blogger to share an openess for suggestions when it comes to your profile interests. Perhaps it is appropriate if I provide a few suggestions, and you can respond with the same.

In no particular order, and chosen on a completely whimsical basis, of course:

1. Cloning

2. Jai Alai

3. The Nebula Awards

4. Ventriloquism

5. Stamp Collecting

6. Croatian Film

7. Real Tennis

8. Barbershop Singing

9. Vietnamese Literature

10. Medieval Armour

Some odd suggestions, but there they sit. Enjoy the blog, the weekend, and best of luck with the Kravchenkos.

Let Me All Your Fortunes Understand

Long weekends = Short weeks, I have no doubt. This one has flown, and the magic of tidal bore rafting with Mr. Toad proved well worth the early wakeup call. Over the free drinks afterward, it was only 7:30PM when we switched from the Vodka Red Bull to the doubles and the waitress asked whether we needed to go to work the next morning. Ha. When the tab was about to close hours later, my knee-jerk reaction was to secretly ask for 3 double rum and cokes under the wire. I heard the whooshing noise. There was also a martini called the Mailman that had a victoriously alcoholic secret ingredient. Much fun.

Smoked the second of the five huge cubans on Wednesday night with an old acquaintance. An affair was proposed, but I confess the idea of planning discrete meetings at afternoon matinees and anonymous motel rooms to be more exciting than the commission of the act itself. Perhaps.

There was discussion that night on the linearity of time - which made me recall the noble Jacques's great passage in As You Like It on ripening and rotting. A lovely scene. Still no response to last week's letter. I must be off to meet a Spanish girl who I am to provide with English lessons in exchange for Spanish phrases, so that is fun. There is always something. More later.

DUKE SENIOR
I think he be transform'd into a beast;
For I can no where find him like a man.

First Lord
My lord, he is but even now gone hence:
Here was he merry, hearing of a song.

DUKE SENIOR
If he, compact of jars, grow musical,
We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.
Go, seek him: tell him I would speak with him.

Enter JAQUES

First Lord

He saves my labour by his own approach.

DUKE SENIOR
Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this,
That your poor friends must woo your company?
What, you look merrily!

JAQUES
A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms and yet a motley fool.
Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he,
'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:'
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.'
When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.

A Split Ridiculous

So finally returned to the bar of Thursday eve to reclaim the credit card left behind after an evening's antics. Fears over the quantum proved unfounded, which was perhaps to be expected given that the main consumption occurred during the aptly-titled "Power Hour". Two Guinness and a Keith's. A fine order in any circumstance.

Ridiculousness, though, as a favorite bartender tells me upon the return of my card - in as jocular a manner as possible, mind you - that I would be wise to keep better company the next time out. Seems that one girl for whom I had bought a shooter ended up getting arrested. Arrested, as in hauled away from the bar that night by the police.

And here I had thought she just took off on me...

Response One

Response to Email One, below. Exceptional in its length and geekiness (email exchanges with "Dr. Math"??), but right up the alley to what was requested. Will certainly email again once he completes the paper on conscience in a few months. Let's hope the timeliness of all future respondents matches this precedent:

hello,

glad to hear that you enjoyed my paper. I am not surprised that you were arguing against a large opposition -the view that infinity is a number is almost always the minority opinion. Most sources you will find online (and I imagine you have already discovered this) argue that infinity is not a number. But, I believe they are all wrong. I don't know if I mentioned this in the essay, but Frege, who was the first to define number about a hundred years ago, found that infinity was obviously a number. In fact, he felt it was so obvious that he devoted no more than a paragraph to discussing the issue.

I don't know if you came across this in your studies of infinity, but mathematicians have been aware for some time (over a hundred years,) that there are different types of infinity. For example, the number of real numbers, while infinite, is in a very meaningful sense larger than the number of integers, which is also infinite. There is a way people use the term infinite, which is not a number, and that is to pick out the property shared by all these different infinities. This property is certainly not a number, just as 'finite' is not a number -it just picks out a property shared by all finite numbers. However, each entity within the set of things that can be described as finite is a number, and the same goes for infinity.

In answer to your question about the research for my paper, the paper was written for a class in analytic philosophy. I was studying the contributions of Frege to philosophy of mathematics, and chose the topic of infinity because of its immediate relation to Freges work, and because of the controversial nature of my thesis (which always makes writing a paper more interesting.) My research mainly involved discussions with various people, since I already had a good grasp of Freges view of numbers and the mathematics of infinity (having taken classes in discrete mathematics.) I discussed the issue with friends, people online (there were several e-mails sent between myself and "Dr.Math",) and professors at my university. In general, those trained in math were the ones to argue infinity was not a number. In fact, I don't remember a single mathematician who argued otherwise. This, despite of the fact that some of them subsequently identified the definition of number in terms of the cardinality of sets (a la frege.) I believe it is simply dogma of the mathematical institution that infinity is not a number -many of their arguments for their position are almost laughably bad. As I mentioned in the essay, it was at one time believed by mathematicians that zero was not a number, of course that position has fallen into disfavor. I am not entirely sure what it will take to change their minds about infinity, since it is precisely the same problem.

In a sense, it doesn't matter whether they call infinity a number or not, because their math will work either way. I might argue that if they don't call it a number then they haven't really understood it, and it might adversely affect their intuitions about theoretical mathematics. However, the real reason I would press them to change their view is that it is simply very irksome to me to have people claim with such
confidence a conclusion that has very little logical support.

if you are interested, I am currently working on a paper arguing that consciousness (in the sens of subjective experience -what it is like to be a sentient being) is a physical phenomenon. This is another controversial position (among the general population, but not, it seems, among philosophers.) I plan on being done within a month and a half or so, and putting it on my website.

http://www.johnath.com/~david/etc/

I also plan to create a very short work on the relation between religion and morality (I will argue that religion is largely detrimental to morality, contrary to popular opinion.)

Also in the works is a debate of sorts about global warming. I intend to put all the arguments and evidence provided by each side in a large chart, and each will correspond with a rebuttal from the other side. Once it is up, I will be encouraging people to provide other argument/evidence suggestions.

thanks again for your interest,

Email Two

This is of a longer story - perhaps more of which might get revealed if there is a response. My excuse was only that I needed so much more study of International Dispute Settlement that night, and the girl I was "kind of" seeing (until she left town three days hence) was in the building beside. No excuse, in other words.

L.

How ARE you? I has been ages. The year has passed wondrously peaceful here in Halifax, partly as the Canadian city is a spectacular one of festive jazz and mayhem on the rolling ocean, as opposed to your dreary provincial "Halifax" of Great Britain.

Thinking of you and what you have been up to these fleeting days, especially over stories told with beer the other night, as I recounted the tale of your surprise knocking at my door on the eve of my first Oxford exam. Which is to say, I guess, that while I have the fewest of regrets of the hours and money spent overseas in 04-05, one of the most profound is certainly in not inviting you in that night. Recollection of that error haunts me still, especially as I love to consider myself a spontaneous creature, and was woefully lacking in that talent upon that surprise.

Perhaps there will be opportunity again down the road. My next trip to merry England is unknown at present, but could happen any moment. For I had no plans to visit Germany for the World Cup or Savannah on a whimsy, but found myself magically in both places ever so recently. So you never know.

I hope - wherever you are, whoever you're with, whatever you're doing - that you are well. It is a wonderful life, after all. Especially obvious on a Friday.

Sometime a Paradox

Shakespeare Friday. The time gives it proof. If you have the fortunate occasion to sit through the play, you can normally hear a hush fall over as people note the most famous of soliloquies. I love it as well, but each time I have seen it, I much favour the immediate afterward, when the nymph in her 'orizons enters the scene. Brannaugh masters the role so much more than the famed Olivier.

Posting of the response to last week's email one and the sending of email two later today. Should I head to the cottage, or is there enough story left in Halifax on a Friday? How hot is a pepper sprout?

OPHELIA
Good my lord,How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET
I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

OPHELIA
My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLET
No, not I;I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA
My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

There, my lord.

HAMLET
Ha, ha! are you honest?

OPHELIA
My lord?

HAMLET
Are you fair?

OPHELIA
What means your lordship?

HAMLET
That if you be honest and fair,
your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

OPHELIA
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
with honesty?

HAMLET
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will
sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox,
but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET
You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot
so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of
it: I loved you not.

OPHELIA
I was the more deceived.

Mars and the Moon

An email from the illustrious Danica White, whose fidelish green hat I stole upon meeting her at the Pogue last year and who seems to punish me by including on her incessant group emails. Today's, at least, had information, albeit a little hysterically so:

Hello friends, 2 Moons will be visible on 27 August '06. Chance of a LIFETIME. Planet Mars will be will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.. This will be on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65 M miles of Earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the Earth has 2 Moons. Don't Miss it..... The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. NOTE : Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again. ONLY LIFETIME CHANCE THIS TIME.

"Too Much to Resist"

Temptation is a seductive mistress:

Neddermeyer was fired after an April 21 incident at the Denison plant. According to Neddermeyer, he showed up for work that morning and saw that there had been a spill of fuel alcohol. Hundreds of gallons of 190-proof alcohol were contained in a 6-inch-deep holding pond that was about 30 feet by 24 feet.

It proved to be too much to resist, Neddermeyer said.

"I am a recovering alcoholic, and I thought about the availability of this alcohol throughout the day," he wrote in a statement later provided to state officials. "Curious about the taste and its effects, I dipped into this lake of liquor and drank what I considered to be 2 to 3 ounces. The next thing I remember is waking up in Crawford County Memorial Hospital." ...

At the hearing, Administrative Law Judge Teresa Hillary asked Neddermeyer, "Why would you drink fuel?""I don't have a good explanation for that," he replied. "Curiosity?"

The tyrant Temures

I love getting the opportunity to cite the House of Lords in otherwise staid legal memos. From Sirius International Insurance Company v. FAI General Insurance Limited, [2004] UKHL 54, Lord Steyn, para. 19:

The tendency should therefore generally speaking be against literalism. What is literalism? It will depend on the context. But an example is given in The Works of William Paley (1838 ed), Vol III, 60. The moral philosophy of Paley influenced thinking on contract in the 19th century. The example is as follows: The tyrant Temures promised the garrison of Sebastia that no blood would be shed if they surrendered to him. They surrendered. He shed no blood. He buried them all alive. This is literalism. If possible it should be resisted in the interpretative process.

Incidents Arose from Circumstance

Ah, the Heat of the Moment. Consider the contrast between Asia's poetry:

...And when your looks are gone and you're alone
How many nights you sit beside the phone
What were the things you wanted for yourself
Teenage ambitions you remember well

And Yeats's:

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep
...

Yet - how can you not so love them both? Especially in this summer heat. And the anticipation of a victorious Courtroom smiting of the opponents tomorrow, after-work patio drinks and on through the Split Crow Power Hour. Then to wake up, hungover, to another glorious Friday. Where further coincidental incidents lie awaiting.