tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38955064634739226362024-02-19T09:55:40.120-05:00Living on a Jet PlaneMahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.comBlogger162125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-34239423141800904162011-04-10T21:04:00.008-04:002011-04-11T22:43:20.827-04:00EdWhen I wrote my last post I felt this blog needed an indefinitely long break. I had a mind to suspend it permanently (or until I turn 25, whichever comes first). But I had an experience this morning which I feel compelled to share.<br /><br />I was on my way home and stopped at Dunkin Donuts for coffee. A man outside the store offered to sell me a copy of the Boston Globe. I declined, but then when I stepped out of the shop with my coffee, he and I started talking.<br /><br />He told me his name was Ed. I gave him my Starbucks name, the one that just about anyone can pronounce regardless of their ethnic and linguistic origins. Ed told me that he had had a long day, but he didn't mind because his new boss had given him a chance to earn some extra money.<br /><br />Up until last November, Ed used to work over in Brookline. He had another boss at that time and he didn't like the way she treated him. She had a habit of taking 80% of the commission they made from selling papers. "She took advantage of being a woman," he complained, "it wasn't fair." But he made a habit of showing up regularly for work anyway. And he told me that's why he was able to get this new job, with a new boss, right near by where he lives. <br /><br />The job opened up because his predecessor died of cirrhosis. Ed shook his head sadly as he told me what happened. "He was 62. Too much alcohol, that stuff will kill you." I nodded a little self-consciously as he went on. "I've been sober for two years now." He certainly seemed sober. <br /><br />It was half past ten on a Sunday morning. Ed explained that he had been standing there since 530am with his new boss, the one he likes. A little while earlier the boss had left him with all the unsold papers, saying "These are all yours. If you sell them all, you can keep all the commission." Ed was grateful for his boss' honest generosity.<br /><br /><em>If he sold all the papers, Ed stood to make seven dollars.</em><br /><br />We talked for a couple of more minutes, about how it was such a nice sunny day, about how I was new in the neighborhood, about nothing at all. Then I went home, still marveling at Ed and his enthusiasm at the chance he'd been given to earn a little extra money on a sunny Sunday morning.<br /><br />Later in the day I took the <a href="http://livingonajet.blogspot.com/2011/01/lessons-from-zen-mistress.html" target="_blank">Zen Mistress</a> out for a walk. I thought about Ed and I kicked myself. I should have just bought all of his unsold newspapers and sent him home. Opportunity lost, and I feel humbled and ashamed.<br /><br />I can only hope that Ed didn't have to stand outside that Dunkin Donuts for too much longer. And I am thankful to him for reminding me that we may be imperfect creatures living imperfect lives but we can still find something to be grateful for.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-29039273424604514682011-04-07T19:42:00.002-04:002011-04-07T19:47:14.764-04:00The converse is usually trueI frequently have theories. My latest theory is that every popular saying is rooted in truth and for every such saying, the converse is often true. And that applies to the very first post ever in this blog. Mystified? Read it and figure it out. The link is on the right. <br /><br />Want a clue? It's in the very first sentence of that very first post. <br /><br />Somehow I feel relieved.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-10511681162085638652011-03-30T19:19:00.004-04:002011-03-30T19:28:01.186-04:00Thank you, MorpheusI feel like I’ve lost a friend. It’s not often that you discover a fictional character so vivid that you feel like you know him personally. I felt that way about Morpheus, the lord of dreams and the principal character in Neil Gaiman’s <em>Sandman </em>series. I finished reading the last of the books in the series last week and as soon as I did, I realized I was going to really miss Morpheus. Damn you, Mr. Gaiman!<br /><br />Since I no longer had new stories about Dream to read, I started to think about the nature of dreams. And thinking about dreams made me think of the world of dreams as a hall of mirrors.<br /><br />Some of those mirrors distort. I look inside them and see my sleeping self reflect back at me a twisted reality. Sometimes that reflection is shrunken and sometimes it is magnified. But one way or another the image it casts is a familiar one, just slightly pallid and a little out of kilter. These are the dreams seen in funhouse mirrors.<br /><br />Sometimes the mirror is like Alice’s looking glass. I lean in for a closer look and fall through it into a world beyond imagining. I have dreamt of flying, of feeling the wind touch my hair. I have dreamt of falling and of knowing that no matter how far I fell, I would not hit the ground. I have had dreams where I was suspended in a bubble from within which I explored a world of wonder. These are the dreams that open a portal into the fantastic voyage.<br /><br />And sometimes the dream is a mirror of crystal lucidity, silvered with the purest self-knowledge. I look at myself, past my eyes, into my own soul. I see in vivid color my deepest hopes, even the ones I dare not speak aloud in my waking mind. I see many futures, colored in colors more true than any limp imitation of truth that conscious reason might scavenge. I look into myself and the naked honesty of that gaze is so piercing, it intimidates. I had such a dream when I was six. I had another such dream last month. And I remember both of them as vividly as if I were in them right now.<br /><br />In <em>The Sandman</em>, the dreamlord Morpheus induces Shakespeare to write <em>The Tempest</em>. And it’s in <em>The Tempest </em>that Shakespeare wrote<br /><br /><em> …. We are such stuff<br />As dreams are made on; and our little life<br />Is rounded with a sleep.</em><br /><br />The idea fascinates me that I was born from a sleep that I will one day fall back into, and that what I experience in between as a life is the most vivid dream of all. I like the idea because if this is a dream, then that is good because in a dream anything is possible. And perhaps the dreams that I dream when I think I am asleep are beacons showing me where my waking dream might take me.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-63216631393939425832011-02-12T19:52:00.002-05:002011-02-12T19:54:55.817-05:00By way of explanationI've been asked if the last few posts are autobiographical. Since some of the people who read this blog know me and might be concerned that I'm having a breakdown, I thought it best to respond to the question.<br /><br />In Greek mythology there are five rivers in Hades. Of these five rivers in the underworld, the waters of Lethe are oblivion. Acheron is pain. Phlegethon is flame. Cocytos is lamentation. And Styx is hate. Any human with feelings has experienced each of these in some small measure. What would happen if the essence of each of these was distilled and amplified to the limit of endurance and then just a little more? <br /><br />The fortunate among us will never find out.<br /><br />And no, I'm not having a breakdown.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-71054452315068839762011-02-04T12:38:00.009-05:002011-02-10T22:43:47.371-05:00Epilogue: StyxI look at you now, and the way you make me feel takes me by cold surprise.<br /><br />I <em>used</em> to hate your eyebrows. Those dark twins that arched in a mocking display of self-satisfied assurance. You could do no wrong. So I must have been the wrong one.<br /><br />I hated your eyes. I hated them for being so beautiful and so cruel. You acted as if you did not know what you were doing. But you knew. We both know that you knew.<br /><br />I loathed your lips. I loathed the careless words they formed for your amusement and my mortification.<br /><br />Your hair. The tilt of your head when you pretended to listen. The shape of your shoulders when you stood up straight. The curve of your spine when you slouched. Your goddamned voice. I knew them intimately and I hated them all.<br /><br />You danced capriciously through my consciousness. You laughed your hollow laugh and left behind a wasteland. You twisted the knife with a smile and a glint and walked away. And so there was a time when I hated you with all my heart.<br /><br />And now? Now I just don't care.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-7047588757634530072011-01-30T11:30:00.005-05:002011-02-04T12:37:45.504-05:00Cocytos<em>Night</em><br />She knows the taste of sadness. It tastes like Scotch whisky. She pours some in a glass now and holds it to her nose. She inhales slowly. It smells like rain. Then she takes a sip and lets herself feel the bitterness seeping in.<br /><br /><em>Evening</em><br />She takes a walk through the forest. It used to be a favorite spot for her, once upon a time when she was happy. It's still a favorite spot for her, because it is a good place for someone who holds darkness in her heart.<br /><br /><em>Morning</em><br />Mornings are the worst time of day. She cannot escape the sight of an empty space which was once filled with a living, breathing person. She stands in the doorway, looking at the bed where someone once slept. Her chest feels as if there is a solid mass of sadness swelling inside. She can feel it pressing against the inside of her ribs, threatening to burst them apart.<br /><br /><em>Night</em><br />She is grateful for the comfort of darkness. She looks at the stars. Then she closes her eyes and wills them to go out one by one. The sky turns as black as coal. She lets her shoulders drop. She lets the memories come. She opens her mouth to sob soundlessly. <br /><br />She feels the comforting cold stab of despair, and she welcomes it into her. Despair is not the enemy; the enemy is hope.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-25295250179784164382011-01-29T15:54:00.005-05:002011-01-29T18:32:38.087-05:00PhlegethonLet's call him Prometheus. It's not his name, but what do names matter?<br /><br />Prometheus' face is smooth. His eyes are calm. His lips are relaxed and show no sign of expressing any emotion. He holds his chin in his hands and looks thoughtful. Noone would guess that he is raging inside.<br /><br />He rages at the rainbow he chased his whole life. He rages at the pot that only holds fool's gold. He rages at the hopes he once held, and the dreams that are now hollow. He rages at the despair of knowing that he is the only one who knows how futile it's all been.<br /><br />He can feel himself shrinking. For months he has been casting off layers of his personality. And in a strange sympathy his body has been becoming smaller. It's an angry anorexia that has taken him.<br /><br />What brought this all on? It was a cup of coffee on a late summer night last year. <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">He sits by himself, looking at a couple looking out of the window. Two men, one in his twenties and one with grey hair. The younger one reaches out and touches his companion's shoulder. <br /><br />Prometheus watches the couple and tries to hear their conversation. They are having an argument. Their voices are quick and urgent but their words are indistinct. Then, without warning, the older man stands up and wrenches his gaze away to break eye contact with his companion. As he does so, he locks eyes with Prometheus.<br /><br />For a slow, dizzy second Prometheus looks at a man who could be his identical twin. Then the spell breaks, and the older man (who looks nothing like Prometheus) leaves the cafe without another word. Prometheus lets out the breath that he did not realize he had been holding.</span><br /><br />He will never forget that older man's eyes. They were filled with a grey longing. They screamed aloud an old man's despair. They set off a sympathetic detonation in Prometheus' head and the reverberations still deafen his mind and deaden his heart. From that day on he began to tear up every tie with every person in his life.<br /><br />He can no longer bear the hypocrisy that's the foundation of every relationship. He refuses to lie and pretend to care when he doesn't. He refuses to trust anyone anymore. People lie all the time. It is better to believe everything is a lie than that anything is true.<br /><br />He has been tearing up every tie and feeding the flames of his anger. When the last one is done, he will have cleansed himself in fire.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-38957771186680479072011-01-25T21:21:00.001-05:002011-01-25T21:24:08.751-05:00Prelude: AcheronShe closes her eyes and feels the pain. It's not physical but it is in her bones. It's the ache of choices made in a life that's so old while still young. <br /><br />Each choice followed the last. How can so many good decisions add up to something so ragged? <br /><br />It started with a glimmer. Something bright white and gossamer. There was a boy. Of course. She didn't care for him. Of course. But he wore her down. <br /><br />There was a child. Then there wasn't. She still remembers the rawness of that. <br /><br />Then there was another child. That child is her essence now. <br /><br />How much longing can you distill into one small life?Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-42845714845824958192011-01-22T19:12:00.011-05:002011-02-04T12:38:10.795-05:00LetheHe drinks his little cup of medicine and waits for evening to fade out. He turns out the light and looks out through a small, square window. There is a faint glow of streetlights reflecting off snow, and a vague haze that must be the husks of trees.<br /><br />He turns away from the window, turns into the pillow. It is time to dream. <br /><br />Hours pass, half-aware. He sees visions inspired by medication, the modern man's muse. They are so vivid, these visions, that he knows he will remember them when he wakes. He wakes then, and on the instant he feels the visions fading away into an oblivion beyond reach of his memory. Perhaps it is for the best. <br /><br />This happens many times in the night until the night turns into morning. He wakes suddenly. His eyes open onto that little square window again. He sees snowflakes falling from a grey sky. He sees the husks of naked trees. He watches the snowfall for hours. Sounds of human voices wax and wane around him. They are signs of life. He pretends to be severely ill. This gives him an excuse to remain aloof from the human sounds outside. Then, embarrassed by his own morbid imagination, he turns away from the snow and turns into the pillow and sleeps some more. <br /><br />The dream visions return. This time he does remember them. Friends and strangers pirouette around him in a circle in a stately dance. He looks into their eyes. Their eyes are all made of the same smoky glass and no one can see him. They know where he is but their eyes do not see him. Nor do they see each other; each one thinks they are alone. No words are exchanged. No one has anything worth saying. <br /><br />He wakes again. He is surprised that the dream has not left him feeling disturbed. It is late into the afternoon. The sun sheds a few final sparks as it sinks behind the twilight. Perhaps there will be stars tonight. But he will not see them.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-34430039714812245512011-01-10T02:43:00.004-05:002011-01-10T04:55:08.861-05:00ChangelingI've been in a whirlwind of travel for the past several weeks. But now that's coming to a close. Later tonight I will get on the first of three flights that will eventually bring me back to Boston.<br /><br />Right now I'm in Singapore. For a change I'm here on holiday, not work. So while my evenings and nights have been a high-speed stream of parties and meetings with old friends, my days have been lazy and relaxed.<br /><br />As I write this I can look out of the open window and see a familiar sight: rain falling on a dense clump of tropical trees. I'm alone in an apartment in a university campus. So the only sounds are a low rustle as millions of raindrops fall on palm leaves, a gentle whirring from the ceiling fan above me, and an occasional swish as a car drives by on the wet road outside.<br /><br />This is a good place and a good day to be silent and to think.<br /><br />I'm thinking about the friend in whose apartment I am. We met years ago, when we were in college. We didn't know it then, but we were still children. He is a professor now; if we had known in college that he would be a professor one day, we would have laughed so hard at least one of us would have ruptured an appendix. <br /><br />It took an impossibly convoluted set of coincidental events for us to meet and to still be friends years later, in countries thousands of miles apart from each other. It fascinates and terrifies me that a hair's breadth of circumstance can make all the difference between someone remaining a stranger or becoming a dear friend. <br /><br />These are the ways that I came to meet some of my closest friends:<br />A chance meeting at a concert.<br />A party where everyone else left early.<br />Another party where we were both uninvited guests.<br /><br />I could as easily - no, <em>more</em> easily - have never met them at all. I could as easily have gone to a different concert, or even stood just a few feet further away than I did, and I would have had one less friend.<br /><br />The professor and I, we tend not to talk much. It's good to know someone with whom you can share silence. When we do talk, the conversation sometimes turns to other people that we both know. Last night we were talking about how they seem to us to have changed much more with the passage of time than we ourselves have. But I'm thinking about that conversation again now, and I think that perhaps we were wrong.<br /><br />I have only a very, very few people that I consider to be truly close friends. There are maybe five or six people who I think know me inside-out. Oddly, most of them have never met each other. And if they did get together, and if for some reason they got to talking about me, it strikes me that each of them would probably describe a different me.<br /><br />It's not because of any duplicity on my part, of course. It's simply that each of these people came to know me at a different point in my life. That's probably why the me that they came to know was a different one from the others. Perhaps in a way each friendship is a sort of time capsule, a way of preserving the person you were when that friendship began. And all the different friendships you begin at different times in your life allow you to change while also staying the same. <br /><br />I'm trying now to imagine what would happen if my few close friends did meet, and what each of them would say about me. I'm trying to hold it all in my head at once and it's oddly unsettling. It feels as if I might have multiple split personalities.<br /><br />I wonder - am I alone in feeling this way?Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-75155102669913592062011-01-01T17:56:00.005-05:002011-01-01T18:10:09.178-05:00Lessons From The Zen MistressOver the past few months I’ve been paying rather more attention than usual to Phoebe. The reasons why don’t matter; or rather they matter a lot but I won’t go into them here. But because of how much I’ve been attending to Phoebe, I’ve realized that there is a lot to learn just from watching her. These, then, are the lessons I learned from her in 2010…<br /><br />If you really care for someone, sometimes the best way to show it is to simply sit near them. Say nothing, and do nothing, but be there waiting until you are needed.<br /><br />You don’t always get rewarded for being good. You don’t always get punished for being bad. That just isn’t how the universe works. And that’s okay. Life is for living, not for keeping accounts.<br /><br />It’s always a good idea to go outdoors, even if only for a little while. No matter what it's like outside, a few minutes spent out in the open will make you feel better.<br /><br />Age is a state of mind. How old you are depends on how badly you want to go out and smell the grass.<br /><br />If you are happy to see someone, let them know it. It’s not something to be shy about.<br /><br />Accidents happen. Get over it.<br /><br />Never take a good thing for granted. Enjoy it while it’s there. And if it’s gone (when it’s gone) don’t brood about it. Sooner or later another good thing will come along. You need to keep your mind clear so that you can see it and seize it when that happens.<br /><br />It’s okay to still love the toy you had when you were a puppy. There are some things you will never grow out of.<br /><br />If you’re happy and you know it, wag your tail.<br /><br />Actions are a lot less confusing than words.<br /><br />There's somebody who's going to miss you very much when you are not there. If you know who that is, you are very lucky. If you will miss them too, you are even luckier.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-11758081895959178872010-12-28T23:57:00.006-05:002010-12-29T00:53:09.437-05:00Real MagicI'm in an airplane leaving Atlanta, on my way to Boston. The stewardess is getting ready to do an in-flight safety briefing that no one will pay the least attention to. In order to avoid eye contact with her I stare at the carpet. Suddenly it strikes me that I am looking at a magic carpet. This carpet, on which sits my chair, on which in turn sit I, this carpet is about to fly and take me far away.<br /><br />At a given moment there are about half a million human beings up in the sky. They are in pointy cylinders of various sizes. They are all going from point A to point B (sometimes with an onward connection to point C). They are the beneficiaries of a miracle whether they know it or not, whether they appreciate it or not.<br /><br />How else would you describe flight, if not as a miracle?<br /><br /><em>When I was younger I often had dreams in which I flew. Sometimes if I tried very hard I could make myself have a flying dream. Unexpectedly I had such a dream last week. I floated effortlessly in the air. I could glide to wherever I wished to go. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to do.</em><br /><br />It surprises me that we don't all fall on our knees in wonder at our magical ability to fly. We complain about missed connections and mislaid bags. We don't give thanks that we can vault over mountains, cross vast oceans and speed across endless plains. We don't give thanks that we can nonchalantly complete journeys which just a few generations ago men would embark on not knowing if they would reach the other end alive. How did we become so jaded?<br /><br />I've noticed that people become very quiet in an airplane. The same people who talk loudly in an airport become strangely subdued once their plane takes off. They start talking in undertones and subdued whispers. I don't think it's deliberate. I think their bodies know that they are doing something amazing and that to ruin the experience with loud voices would be uncouth. Of course, babies are an exception. Babies have no qualms about being loud in an airplane. But then nobody expects any better from babies.<br /><br /><em>I once flew in a helicopter. I imagine it was a little like being a bee in a flower garden. We hovered and flew, hovered and flew. We savoured the sight of the landscape below us like nectar. We would swoop down close to drink our fill, then flit away to another spot, then swoop down again.</em> <br /><br />What makes flying special is that it involves transcending our limitations as mere wingless earthbound humans. When we fly, we become like angels. Oh, it's easy to lose sight of that amidst the minutiae of visas and boarding passes. But visas and boarding passes have everything to do with airlines and nothing to do with flight.<br /><br />Because this is what flying is about...<br /><br />It's when the you feel the airplane accelerate. It's when you feel the gentle pressure on your body that molds your back to your seat. It's when you feel the rumble of the runway transmitted to you through the wheels. That rumble becomes more and more insistent until it turns into a shock of silence as your plane throws off the yoke of gravity and rises joyfully into the sky.<br /><br />And that's when you know you've experienced a miracle once again.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-85090503141711261542010-12-24T11:00:00.008-05:002010-12-24T11:49:01.845-05:00Another Time, Another PlaceI love the thrill of going to a new country for the very first time. Even when you think you know what to expect, you know that you will be surprised. And this, my first visit to Mexico, is extra special because it's more than my introduction to a new country. It's also my introduction to a new civilization.<br /><br />I've read about the Maya since I was a child. I've been fascinated by the New Age theories that they were the beneficiaries of instruction by an advanced, alien race. I've watched the movie <em>Apocalypto</em> (a rather visceral film, but one I would still recommend). And now I have seen the Maya with my own eyes.<br /><br />I went to Chichen Itza today. I'd heard that it's one of the most impressive of all the Maya sites that still exist. I was impressed all right.<br /><br />I was impressed by this pyramid. <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho9vCBtpBGItSKP9E-Nfl2kNLhyZmG65FJt5u_NrA_WsppNhX9DYz_nGiEuhYpIK-bjbCWpccz7uCZI0_JaDoQ_5d7Xmb2wwsAR2_ET3KOfqOTuh3ad8GqT-0FRWtZx5wuxfW89hWD2sI/s1600/IMG_0038.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho9vCBtpBGItSKP9E-Nfl2kNLhyZmG65FJt5u_NrA_WsppNhX9DYz_nGiEuhYpIK-bjbCWpccz7uCZI0_JaDoQ_5d7Xmb2wwsAR2_ET3KOfqOTuh3ad8GqT-0FRWtZx5wuxfW89hWD2sI/s400/IMG_0038.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554281580056470258" /></a><br />This is not like the Pharaonic pyramids in Egypt, which were either built to be over-elaborate tombs or as landing beacons for alien spacecraft (depending on whom you believe). Instead, the Maya pyramid of Chichen Itza had the supremely pedestrian function of being a calendar. Each step represents a day of the year, the orientation is designed around the solstices and equinoxes, and so on. In other words, the gigantic object in the picture is a 3-dimensional mother-of-all-calendars.<br /><br />But perhaps dismissing it as a mere calendar is unfair. After all, the Mayan calendar is undeniably dramatic. It ends in two years. That's right, under one popular interpretation of the Maya calendar, the 21st of December 2012 will mark the end of Time. You might want to reconsider your retirement plan.<br /><br />One of the few things more dramatic than the Mayan calendar is the Mayan version of ball sports. The ball court at Chichen Itza is the biggest of all the ball courts in Central America. <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3XphAoKrJ-RGARxPYWw0cmw0rG0hBBaEh5c6Hc_Qz3oeSn_1rvM9jyHzu4ji5Vpm1Ce2M_VMnVsNGlhqLJFQbJZLM5sH4-wj3OHHKq4lyQVdbuSaDCOTTsx7377Ig1Tf5QgJh0iVYZcw/s1600/IMG_0043.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3XphAoKrJ-RGARxPYWw0cmw0rG0hBBaEh5c6Hc_Qz3oeSn_1rvM9jyHzu4ji5Vpm1Ce2M_VMnVsNGlhqLJFQbJZLM5sH4-wj3OHHKq4lyQVdbuSaDCOTTsx7377Ig1Tf5QgJh0iVYZcw/s400/IMG_0043.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554283801583652386" /></a><br />And the ball games played here were played for the highest possible stakes: the captain of the losing team would forfeit his head.<br /><br />Just behind the ball court is a wall with grisly images of death. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5LP1zfeUbq51Tg8wYyvbBGhN_u-4b5txCsZtcaYKGAosGQyNT_v97Im0EYGhc9f_P94eP0t19OrzTeKZtApKys4MRMQLxeTUutrnosHEnuid1MHUbU0VcMtVq9olCAF0mfAG9FuOBZFE/s1600/IMG_0054.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5LP1zfeUbq51Tg8wYyvbBGhN_u-4b5txCsZtcaYKGAosGQyNT_v97Im0EYGhc9f_P94eP0t19OrzTeKZtApKys4MRMQLxeTUutrnosHEnuid1MHUbU0VcMtVq9olCAF0mfAG9FuOBZFE/s400/IMG_0054.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554285527334854306" /></a><br /><br />This is where the skulls of the decapitated were kept. The sight brings to mind something said by Bill Shankly, the late manager of Liverpool Football Club: "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that."<br /><br />It was odd for me to see that many of the souvenir vendors at the archaeological site were wearing replica t-shirts of European soccer clubs. I saw Barcelona and Inter-Milan and Juventus, to name a few. These vendors looked like they could be Maya, and they had clearly adopted a far less lethal version of ball sports than their late ancestors.<br /><br />Later that night I was back in my hotel. I had smoothly switched back from the Maya to a far more familiar civilization, that of the international traveler in a chain hotel. I thought about the Spanish <em>conquistadors</em> who came here half a millenium ago and who thought their Christian European civilization must engage the pagan Maya in a fight to the death. I thought of their compatriots who similarly strove against the Inca to the south. I thought of the Mayan souvenir vendors and the Spanish and Italian soccer teams that they support from thousands of miles away. I thought of the dinner I had had, with Italian food, Argentinian wine and Mexican coffee. And I realized something I had not paid attention to before.<br /><br />There is no such thing as a clash of civilizations. <em>People</em> can and do clash violently. But <em>civilizations</em> simply cannot. Civilization is in food and drink, in art and music and literature, in civility and finesse, and it comes alive through people living with other people. A clash of civilizations makes as little sense as a battle of desserts. <br /><br />Some of us are privileged to have the means to travel and encounter other civilizations at first hand. And <em>all</em> of us are privileged to live in a time when encounters with other civilizations are not just possible, they are commonplace. I'm going to be reminded of that now every time I eat a <em><em>gyro</em></em> sandwich, or watch a <em>kung-fu</em> movie, or listen to music that samples African drums. And I'm going to be very grateful.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-58343503574733912752010-11-24T15:14:00.006-05:002010-11-24T15:35:13.807-05:00The Secret LanguageThe English that is spoken in India is no longer the language that the British empire left behind. In fact it's not even one language anymore.<br /><br />There is a straightforward (if slightly odd) version of Indian English that gets everyday tasks done. This is the English where you reschedule an event to an earlier time by 'pre-poning' it instead of by advancing it, or where you politely request someone to introduce themselves by asking for their 'good name'.<br /><br />But lurking behind this functional language is a second underground language that sounds deceptively similar. To truly understand this second language you have to appreciate that it is a language of fantasies.<br /><br />Pradeep lives in a slum across the street from one of Mumbai's newer shopping malls. I was with a small group of people who met with him in the course of our work. To get to where he lives we stopped at a street fronted by small stores. In front of the stores there were three live goats that had been decorated for the upcoming Id festival when they would be ritually slaughtered. Flies buzzed idly around us as we found a little corridor that we had to walk through to get to the one-room home where Pradeep would meet us.<br /><br />This wasn't <em>his</em> home. In fact we never figured out whose home it was. But Pradeep insisted on meeting us there instead of in his own home, which he was worried was not presentable. Soon it became obvious that he wanted to dissociate himself from his home and his family. At one point he made a telling comment when he talked about the things he did to cultivate a 'funky look' to fit in with his friends at college. He made it clear that his parents approved of neither his friends nor their contagious funkiness. And he implied with unspoken eloquence that their funkiness symbolized their relative affluence; an affluence that he keenly wanted to partake of.<br /><br />We heard the phrase 'funky style' used by many different people. And every time it carried the same undertones: a funky style is one that allows you to make an uncompromising statement that you are an individual distinct from the family and the community that you have come from. It is a signal that you are brave and flexible enough to fit into an exciting, demanding, competitive world where sometimes style <em>is</em> substance. (And it's a gentle hint to your parents that you have a little bit of a rebel inside you.)<br /><br />Vinay already knows he fits into the exciting, competitive world around him. He hasn't made his mark in it yet. He still takes a train and bus to work, which means that he commutes for 3 hours everyday. But he is confident that he will work his way up the corporate ladder and buy a car so that he can drive to work instead. That's not his fantasy; it's his plan.<br /><br />He reserves his fantasizing for a different sort of escape. He wants to go bungee jumping in Australia or New Zealand. In his words, he has been 'passionating' about it for two years. In truth, I don't think he really cares where he jumps off a bridge as long as it's in a place far away from home.<br /><br />"Passionating" is a word that is as vividly expressive as it is hideously ugly. When Vinay said he had been passionating for 2 years I just knew that for those 2 years he had been playing and replaying in his head a movie of what he thought bungee jumping would look and feel like.<br /><br />Ryan was the driver who took us to meet both Pradeep and Vinay. While negotiating a particularly bumpy road he turned to me and said wistfully half in Hindi and half in fantasy-English "The roads in 'Foreign' must be very smooth, not like what we have in Mumbai."<br /><br />To him, the word 'Foreign' was not an adjective. It described a specific place. It's a place he has seen on TV and in the movies and which probably exists in his mind as a unique mash-up of New York City, Interstate highways in the US, airports in Europe, and other such internationalized images of life in richer countries. For Ryan the word 'Foreign' does not describe all the places that are outside India. Instead, it describes his idea of <em>the</em> place that is <em>not</em> India.<br /><br />'Funky', 'passionating', 'Foreign' - these are all part of the vocabulary of a language that linguists have not yet discovered because it impersonates English so well. The words seem deceptively familiar but if you listen carefully you can hear the dreams of men and women who yearn for a whiff of the extraordinary to come into their lives.<br /><br />If you could have heard Pradeep and Vinay and Ryan whisper their dreams in their secret language, I think you would have had the same wish as me: that they would experience the fantasies that they had thus far only imagined. And that what they experienced would be everything that they had hoped for.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-84944172997110696592010-10-17T22:04:00.007-04:002010-10-18T10:22:37.642-04:00Um Provérbio PortuguêsTwo weeks ago I was in Sao Paulo. I was talking to Roberto, a 22-year-old with spiky hair and a passion for playing Farmville. Somewhere in the middle of a rather mundane conversation he quoted an old Portuguese proverb that made me sit bolt upright:<br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">God writes straight with crooked lines.</span><br /><br />The instant I heard it, I knew that there was something magical in its simplicity. But then it took me a few days to really appreciate just how much had been said in those few words.<br /><br />Perhaps I got distracted by the word 'God'. As an atheist, I am sometimes a bit slow to absorb ideas that refer to Him. (And no, I am not such a rabid atheist that I would de-capitalize God or His pronoun.) But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that whether or not He exists, He does indeed write straight with crooked lines.<br /><br />I can think of times when something happened in my life that made me stop dead in my tracks and ask <em>Why me? Why do I deserve this?</em> And somehow, unexpectedly, that bad thing led to something good. I'm not suggesting for even a second that whenever something bad happens, something good will follow to compensate. It's not as if the universe would try to compensate us, like some retail chain threatened by a lawsuit.<br /><br />But I am beginning to believe that sometimes bad things have a way of mysteriously begetting good things. The gestation period can be so long that the connection is really, really hard to see. And if you are in the middle of the bad thing (and if you are a normal person with normal emotions!) it's probably impossible to imagine that anything good could come from what you're going through.<br /><br />But if you think about something that happened years and years ago that angered and saddened you, and then you take a step back and another and maybe a few hundred more, you just might be able to see the straight line that connects that bad thing to something else that's good and that you can be grateful for.<br /><br />And if you can do that, then maybe you can also believe in my other favourite piece of practical wisdom from Brazil:<br /><em>It'll all be okay in the end. And if it's not okay, then it's not yet the end.</em><br /><br />I'll leave the last words for Scot James, a man who is living proof that God writes straight with crooked lines.<br /><br /><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_j7c4HNX3TU?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_j7c4HNX3TU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-41181044955510769262010-09-26T10:56:00.006-04:002010-09-26T12:14:49.126-04:00Life and MotionI have two arduous projects underway. I've already mentioned in an earlier post that one of them is to write a novel. The other is to run a marathon.<br /><br />To my surprise, I've been training regularly. One of the unexpected benefits of that is that I get lots of time to listen to music while I run. That's given me the opportunity to rediscover some truly brilliant lyrics. The one I came accross this morning was from <em>Dreamline</em>, by Rush:<br /><br /><em>We are young<br />Wandering the face of the earth<br />Wondering what our dreams might be worth<br />Knowing that we're only immortal for a limited time</em><br /><br />There was something eerily appropriate about the fact that I listened to this today, just a couple of hours after landing in Rio de Janeiro, five thousand miles away from home. It's my third visit to Brazil. The first one was <a href="http://livingonajet.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html" target="blank">back in 2008</a>, and it taught me about living in the moment. The second one was in May this year, and that one taught me that every single day can bring a delightful surprise - you just have to be ready to embrace it. I wonder what I will learn this week.<br /><br />I've already had my first unusual conversation of this trip, and that was while I was still in the US. I was eating dinner while waiting for my connecting flight. Tyler, the waiter who was serving me, noticed I was reading a book about human intelligence. He asked to read the back cover and saw that it made mention of dreams and myths. For some reason that reminded him of the spiritual journey that he was on. He told me that his wife had just bought him a very similar book as a present for their anniversary, which was on the following day<br /><br />To appreciate the unexpectedness of that statement, you need to know what Tyler looks like. He is thin as a rake. He has a sparse billy-goat growth of thin curls on his chin. He speaks with the confident earnestness of someone who has never had a difficult conversation with a policeman. He doesn't look a day older than seventeen. I could accept that even at a tender age he had spiritual yearnings. But there is no way he is old enough to be legally married. <br /><br />Nevertheless, I hid my disbelief and encouraged him to tell me more. He recommended a site called <a href="http://www.nohoax.com" target="blank">www.nohoax.com</a>. Obviously, with a name like that I was intensely suspicious and looked it up immediately. I was not disappointed. The site is run by a a guy called George Green who claims that God was the leader of an extra-terrestrial race and that more recently the aliens contacted George himself to get him to spread their message. I tried to read what that message was, and swiftly concluded it was just page after page of polysyllabic rambling.<br /><br />I guess spirituality is like ice cream. It comes in many flavors and we are all entitled to choose the one that comforts us best. I can judge George Green - in fact I already have. But it's not for me to judge Tyler's willingness to hear what Green has to say. I don't understand why, but Green's ideas help Tyler feel connected with his world, they reassure him that there is more to life than collecting tips in an airport restaurant and they give his (probably illegal) wife a reason to buy him an anniversary present. So I have to concede that something good has happened.<br /><br />It's part of the gift of human intelligence that we can search for ideas, we can try them on, we can live through them for as long as they work. And when they no longer improve our lives we can discard them and move on to new, richer, more fulfilling ideas. Maybe Tyler will follow Green's ideas for years. Or maybe he will move on to something new next week. But as long as he's thinking about what's around him, eventually he will move on. That's why it's a spiritual <em>journey</em>, not a quest. A journey continues, a quest eventually ends.<br /><br />As long as we're searching for new ideas, we're still thinking. And as long as we're still thinking, we're still alive. Whether or not we travel from place to place we can still wander the face of our inner world, weighing the weight of our dreams. We may only be immortal for a limited time, but it's up to us to make that time last as long as we want it to. It only ends when the wandering stops.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-31092406539201002672010-08-24T21:15:00.003-04:002010-08-24T21:22:13.025-04:00Open Your NoseSometimes when you travel you are lucky enough to get the feeling that you have a personal connection to the place that you're in. It's a feeling that comes very rarely. But when it does, you look around and say to yourself "I could live here. I really could!"<br /><br />I had that feeling on Saturday night. I was in Lincoln, a small town (population 1300) in New Hampshire. During the day I had already been charmed by the New England Ski Museum. There, in a building smaller than the average McDonalds, I saw Olympic medals for the first time in my life. There was a gold, three silvers and a bronze. All had been won by Bode Miller, who was raised nearby and grew up to be one of the greatest Alpine skiers ever. A few feet to the left I saw a sword that had belonged to Benito Mussolini. Yes, that's the same Mussolini who led Italy into an ill-fated embrace with Nazi Germany. How his sword found it's way here is a story for another time. The point is, I was instantly captivated by the quirkiness of the place.<br /><br />So I was already in a good mood by the time dinner was eaten. My companions were friends from Boston, each with a son the same age as mine. After the children were asleep we started talking over mojitos and red wine. As the conversation grew more animated I felt a strong urge to step outside by myself.<br /><br />It was a warm night. I walked barefoot accross the grass and sat down on a rock. A drop of water fell on the back of my neck. I looked up at the overcast sky but no more water fell.<br /><br />I closed my eyes. As I had recently explained to a friend, to be fully present inside a moment you need all your senses. And sometimes you need to close your eyes so that you can hear and smell and taste and feel.<br /><br />I heard a river. It was rushing over a bed of stones with a sound like white noise. It always amazes me that running water sounds so busy yet it's the most relaxing thing to listen to.<br /><br />I felt the grass under my feet and between my toes. I moved them around, gently massaging my soles with the wet stalks underneath. Then, on a whim I got up from the rock I was sitting on and stood on it instead. I could feel every inch of the grained surface that I was standing on.<br /><br />I breathed deeply. The air was cool and clean except for a faint trace of woodsmoke. I breathed again and caught a delicately sweet whiff of something familiar but unindentifiable.<br /><br />I stood like that for several minutes. I was soaking in all the sensations, imprinting them on my mind. Then I opened my eyes. I looked around. And I whispered to myself "I could live here."Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-79008569278106066052010-07-25T22:35:00.005-04:002010-07-25T23:02:58.399-04:00More Than I Can Chew?A few days ago I decided to begin a serious attempt at writing fiction. The last time I tried, I was 10 years old. So I'm just a little rusty.<br /><br />I rather like the idea of writing a novel. I actually wrote that into my bucket list when I made one a couple of years ago. But at that time I had no idea when I would get around to making a beginning. There were a few other things in the list that seemed easier, so I figured I would focus on them first. There would be time enough to write a novel after I went to Machu Picchu and after I got my hair colored purple.<br /><br />But for a few different reasons I've decided that the time to begin the novel is now. And I am discovering that I have taken on an even bigger challenge than I had realized.<br /><br />I had assumed that the hard part of writing a novel would be the mechanics involved in telling a long story. Things like keeping track of characters and chrolonolgy, avoiding plot inconsistencies, and maintaining a consistent writing style. It turns out I had over looked the biggest challenge of all: finding a story to tell that people would be interested in reading!<br /><br />I now realize how easy blogging can be. All I have to do is find something interesting, and then describe it. There is no real creation involved, it's simply a matter of telling it like it is.<br /><br />The trouble with fiction is that it is all about telling it like it <em>isn't</em>. It's got to be a story that is not an ordinary everyday story, because that would be boring. But it also has to be within the realms of believability otherwise it won't be credible enough to be engaging. It has to have characters that are interesting enough that you care about what happens to them. But they also have to be relatable otherwise the reader would not empathize with them. And so the art of creating a story for a novel turns out to be a phenomenal balancing act between the believable and the fantastic.<br /><br />One of the great things about this adventure is that it has made me much more aware as a reader. I am currently reading the Girl Who Played With Fire. It's a crime thriller by a Swedish author named Stieg Larsson. I already knew it was a great book. But now I have become more conscious of what makes it a great book. I am now able to appreciate the care that went into creating Lisbeth Salander, the title character. She is obviously totally different from me or anyone I know. And yet Mr. Larsson tells me just enough about her that I feel like I know her, that I have known people who had glimmers of the characteristics that Lisbeth has, and that I can understand her well enough that I give a damn about her fate. And this is for a character who is clearly disturbed, somewhat sociopathic, given to intense violent rage, and is absolutely brilliant.<br /><br />I now have an urge to go back and re-read my favorite books, the ones that had the most lasting impact on me. I want to read them simultaneously at two levels, the reader who just cares for the story and the apprentice who gazes in awe at a master craftsman at work. <br /><br />It's going to be a hard and painful road, writing a novel, and I'm looking forward to every bit of it!Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-2425364394398687372010-07-05T07:50:00.004-04:002010-07-05T09:50:38.103-04:00About Once Every Twenty YearsIt was a Hollywood moment. The one where you're in a cafe on a summer evening with a girl in your arms. You look into her eyes and the sounds around you fade away into a soft murmur. She looks into your eyes with complete, unquestioning trust.<br /><br />And then, softly fluttering her tiny eyelids, she falls asleep cradled against your chest.<br /><br />I looked up from little Sofi to her parents and said defensively "This never happens to me!" <br /><br />You see, I don't like other people's children. I avoid their babies. They're ugly. Last week a colleague offered to show me a picture of her baby. I looked at her (I have a special look for moments like these). "There's no good way to say this", I explained, "so I'll just say it. I don't like to look at baby pictures. They're all the same to me." She tried to explain that was impossible, that everyone loves babies and thinks they're cute. Finally, in desperation, she said it must be because I'm a man. And I thought to myself <em>No, it's because that's a baby and one day she may be gorgeous but right now she's mostly fat with limbs attached</em>. I didn't say it, but I thought it.<br /><br />I did once meet a child who was irresistibly charming. I think she was around 5 years old and her name was Kati. She lived in a tribal village in central India where I spent a summer. She had a smile that would very slowly spread across her face until it was brighter than the sun. That was the summer of 1991; I still remember her vividly.<br /><br />But she was the one enchanting exception to prove the rule that if you're too young to drive, your parents should keep you away from me.<br /><br />I don't make funny faces at babies. I don't lisp at toddlers. I don't ask 6-year-olds what they're doing at school because I don't give a damn. And if you've just delivered a baby I'm really happy for you but I will not visit you in hospital. I actually like hospitals, I've had some incongruously funny experiences in them! But newborns give me the creeps. <br /><br />And no, I don't want to hold your baby. <em>You made it, you keep it!</em> That's what I should have said in response to the question "Sofi seems to like you; do you want to hold her?"<br /><br />But Spain had just won their quarter-final in the World Cup, I was drinking Sangria, it was a lovely sunny day, and I wanted to be nice. <br /><br />And that's how Sofi ended up with her head against my chest and my arms around her. That's how she fell asleep with her fingers loosely curled around my thumb. That's how... Gah! Never mind. It's no use trying to deny it. I like Sofi.<br /><br />This could be the beginning of the end of me as I know him.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-43184122412406084522010-06-28T21:36:00.004-04:002010-07-04T15:54:23.137-04:00My Best Friend28th of June. It's my birthday. lt's the day I reaffirn my status as a 24-year-old.<br /><br />I'm alone.<br /><br />A neighbourhood bar. 3 friends. Alright, 1 friend and 2 aquaintances. And an aquiantace of an aquaintance. But we can still drink beers and be polite and pretend that we care.<br /><br />Two beers and a shot later our patience is wearing thin. Let's get the check, let's shake hands.<br /><br />Start the engine. Stop the engine. Open the door. <br /><br />What's that sound? Feet shuffling on the wooden floor. A snort turns into a bark. A small golden object hurtles towards me. <br /><br />She licks me, she loves me. She's my best friend. Ever.<br /><br />Dog.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-76442416995465878742010-06-19T23:24:00.005-04:002010-06-19T23:53:02.564-04:00Ten ThingsLooking out through an open window.<br />Wearing flip-flops to walk the dog.<br />Chipmunks everywhere. And I mean <u>everywhere</u>.<br />Eating dinner on the patio.<br />Sunglasses at 8pm.<br />White wine, not red.<br />Ice in the coffee.<br />The sound of cicadas at dusk.<br />Grass under your toes.<br /><br />And ice cream in the car with the windows rolled down.<br /><br /><br /><em>That's </em>what summer is all about.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-51506755074776292562010-06-15T00:25:00.004-04:002010-06-16T21:45:29.889-04:00CurtisWhen I got into the waiting taxi, the driver was talking on his cellphone. I listened to him murmuring into his handset and I hazarded a guess. "Is that your girlfriend?". He put her on speakerphone and passed the conversational baton to her. "Are you my girlfriend?"<br /><br />A pause. Then an amused voice spoke up from the palm of his hand "I guess I am."<br /><br />That settled, I suggested to Curtis (that was the driver's name) that we pass through a McDonalds drivethrough. I was hungry and there's nothing like Maccers after drinks at 2am. He let me buy him a fizzy orange soda. With the ice thus broken, I indulged my curiosity.<br /><br />He said it was his first day driving a taxi since his return. Return from where?, I asked. From away, he said. Away where?, I probed. My hunch was right. He had just got out of prison.<br /><br />How he got into prison was quite a tale. He had been driving an NFL player who was with the Bengals. He'd been doing it for a while and thought they had become friends. Until the day they got hit by a car. Curtis got hurt and missed an appointment with a probation officer (so clearly he'd been in trouble before). For missing the meeting he had to go to jail. His NFL buddy turned out to be no friend and no help.<br /><br />While in jail, Curtis' girlfriend told him that she had delivered their baby. And that the baby was now his problem. So when he came out, he had to take charge of the child as well as two other children from two other relationships.<br /><br />And so here he was, driving a taxi through Cincinnati early in the morning, telling his story to a complete stranger.<br /><br />How much of what he'd told me was true, I wondered. And what were the things that he had left out?Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-71992721878057928432010-01-04T23:40:00.003-05:002010-01-05T00:25:47.022-05:00Howdy, Neighbour!I touched a piece of the moon yesterday and I am unashamedly giddy about it. I was at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, home of the space shuttles. There, on display and available for visitors to touch, is a square inch of rock that's been brought back from the moon. <br /><br />There's something staggering about touching an object that's come from another world nearly half a million kilometers away. And something sobering about knowing what went into bringing it back. The moon rock is displayed a few meters away from a Saturn V rocket, which was the sort of rocket used for lunar missions. The moon rock is a few centimeters long and weighs a few hundred grams. The rocket is 110 meters long and weighs over 3,000 tons. That means it's about as big as a 35-storey building. It took the efforts of tens of thousands of men and women to build. And it claimed at least three lives.<br /><br />Astronaut Eugene Cernan stepped off the moon's surface in 1972. He didn't know it then, but he was about to become 'the last man on the moon'. He still holds that unfortunate title, nearly forty years later. <br /><br />A lot happened in those forty years. Wars were fought. Smallpox was eliminated. Our world became digital. And uncomfortably warmer. But nothing, simply nothing, came close to firing our imaginations like the grainy images of men in white spacesuits clumsily bouncing off a desolate lunar landscape. I touched a fragment of that landscape yesterday. I could not feel more pleased, or more privileged.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-37944866884521855552009-12-21T21:43:00.007-05:002009-12-21T23:12:20.825-05:00Second InningsYeah, it's my second winter in Boston. You can tell by the fact that I now speak Farenheit. It's such a relief that I can do that now. It's been excruciating to have to mentally convert from degrees F to degrees C, just to decide whether I should feel icy cold or totally frigid.<br /><br />But I still resent the Farenheit scale for being inexplicably difficult. It was originally designed so that the temperature of the human body would be 96 degrees. Not 100 degrees, but 96. Then, in an "improvement", the scale was modified so that the difference between the melting and boiling points of water would be 180 degrees. Not 200 degrees, but 180. Oh, and of course the freezing point of water is 32 degrees. Not 30 degrees, but 32. It is a travesty of common sense that the scale still survives. <br /><br />Clearly it takes more than 2 winters to learn to speak in ounces. That's partly because of the number of ounces that exist. There's the avoirdupois ounce, the troy ounce, and the Maria Theresa ounce, each of which is a different measure equivalent to between 28 and 31 grams. Then there's the Dutch ounce which, with characteristic Dutch obtuseness, is 100 grams. And then, just to really make things enjoyable, there's the fluid ounce which is not even a measure of weight. So when I go shopping for food, it's always a matter of conjecture as to whether I will buy enough to feed a family of 3 or an entire clan of Indians.<br /><br />I miss the sheltered, metric world in which I grew up. It was a simpler time, when men were men, women were strangers, and it was a cold day if you could stand in the sun without breaking into a sweat. <br /><br />Interestingly, according to the 2006 CIA World Factbook as quoted in Wikipedia, i.e. according to an obviously incontrovertible source, there are only 3 countries which do <span style="font-style:italic;">not</span> use the metric system as their standard for measures. One of them is the US. The second is Liberia. The third is Myanmar. <br /><br />Make of that what you will.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895506463473922636.post-86492517249348251722009-12-06T03:16:00.004-05:002009-12-21T21:49:55.017-05:00Punching My CardIt's almost obvious what makes a person begin a blog: an irresistible and sometimes ill-advised urge to express. Lately I've been more interested in what makes a blogger stop posting. I'd like to figure out what happened to me.<br /><br />As "A regular reader" commented, I seem to be on an indefinite sabbatical. I do, don't I? Except that a sabbatical is meant to be time taken off for rest, or for learning. I'm afraid in the past few months I've rested little and learned less. And, much as it disappoints me to admit it, I've not thought anything interesting enough to motivate me to write. <br /><br />It's a potent combination of circumstances. I've had too much to do at work, as much again to do at home, and too little inspiration in either place. That combination ensured I would stay away from my keyboard. Perhaps it was inevitable that I would enter such a phase sooner or later.<br /><br />I can only hope it <span style="font-style:italic;">is</span> a phase, and not a permanent condition. Keep watching this space, and you'll find out.Mahoganyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11848260580524244531noreply@blogger.com2