15Feb / 2013

The god of the office watches snow

The god of the office stands on the balcony and smokes a cigarette and watches the snow.

He thinks many things at once.

He thinks, I’m giving these up for Lent, like last year. Although he is not Catholic, the god of the office is embracing the idea of giving things up, and he is tired of stinking. Also, he was at the dermatologist last night and age came crashing down on his head like a freak wave; his arms in his reflection in the mirror in the cold doctor’s office lighting said, get to the gym on a regular basis; the basal cell carcinoma on his shoulder said, eat more anti-oxidants, and so on.

All the old-guy stuff all of a sudden.

It’s always sudden, although it never is.

At least I don’t have thick, yellow toenails yet, thinks the god of the office.

The god of the office stands on the balcony and watches the snow. I did a good job with snow, if I say so myself, thinks the god of the office. It looks good when it’s little dry flakes, and it looks good when it’s big wet flakes. Kids play in it and the Inuit make shelters from it.

Snow reminds the god of the office of Japan, when it’s thick on the branches of pine trees. Japan reminds the god of the office of moss and snow and autumn leaves and the frog jumping into the pond, plop.

The god of the office thinks of Shinjuku station, milling with millions of commuters in a hurry. Where’s the moss and snow there?

We carry it with us, say the commuters.

The god of the office thinks about the world’s current business model:

Entertain them: news, bread and circuses, TV shows, social media, like that.
Scare them: drugs, poverty, unemployment, terrorism, precarious employment, marginal health care, artificial scarcity in the midst of abundance, due to unfair distribution of wealth.
Keep them stupid and confused: crappy education, bullshit economics, TV news, etc.
Keep them divided and distracted: racism, social issues, religion, class, and all that.
Profit!

Maybe free will wasn’t such a good idea, he thinks. He shrugs. Too late now.

The god of the office watches some snow fall off a branch, and he watches a winter crow.

Why don’t you fly south, he asks the crow.

Because we’re crows, says the crow.

The god of the office puts out his last cigarette, and looks at it. I will miss you guys, he thinks.

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04Feb / 2013

2013 metamorphosism.com International St. Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest

Hard to believe a year has passed, but it has.

Suddenly, it’s time for the metamorphosism.com St. Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest again.

ZOMFG!

The contest will be very simple this year. Here are the rules:

Read all the rules before entering. This is because entering the contest indicates that you have read and accepted all the rules and terms of the contest.
Enter in the comments to this post.
All entries must be in limerick form. If you are unfamiliar with what constitutes limerick form, a quick Internet search using the search engine of your choice will clear up any uncertainty. Alternatively, you may consult a book or ask someone.
This year, there is no prize. This may change if someone generously donates a prize, but don’t hold your breath.
There is a mystery judge this year. Maybe I’m the judge, maybe someone else. Who knows? It’s a mystery.
As every year, conduct of the contest and judging will be arbitrary, corrupt, biased and otherwise patently unfair. Believe me, no one suffers more from this than I. I would change it if I could, but this is a built-in feature of the contest and always has been.
Anyone complaining about the rules, conduct of the contest, judging or anything else in connection with the limerick contest shall be disqualified and ridiculed publicly or privately, at my discretion.
Rules are subject to change without prior and/or further notice.
The contest has one or more themes every year. This year, the themes are malfeasance, iatrogenic illness, Scandinavia (especially furniture), jurisprudence animal husbandry, Scotland, horseradish and television series involving dragons or cooking (or both)
Bonus points for astronomical legal terminology, as well as terminology suggested by the themes listed in rule 9.
As per rule 8, themes and bonus points are also subject to change without further and/or prior notice.
Winners will be announced on or about St. Valentine’s Day (14 February 2013 (my time)).
Have fun!

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22Jan / 2013

Dear Younger Self,

Tuesday 22 January 2013 sounds like the distant future, because of the three at the end, maybe, but it feels like the present – mundane and ordinary; cold (we got a lot of snow), dark right now, a little frustrating, a little disappointing but at the same time surprising, fulfilling and hopeful. I have met a few people, and figured out that people are wonderful in many ways.

Furthermore, future technology makes it possible to share mundane details of strangers’ lives, which makes them seem familiar, almost friend-like sometimes, except when they get excited about spectator sports. I still can’t understand getting excited about spectator sports, with the possible exception of water sports such as diving, swimming, or ice-skating.

Here we are in 2013 and yet the future still has not arrived; we have no jet-packs, flying cars, underwater houses or widespread telepathy. There have been some suprises, on the other hand – above all, telephones, which can be used to take photographs, or watch cats fall off fences, among other things.

Mostly, the present just goes on and on, and the past gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Some diseases are cured, some grow less virulent, some more, and new ones are discovered. Man’s still gotta die, it seems.

Parasites, widely conceived, are fascinating, and you should study them and do something with your life, but you won’t. You will study a variety of things and eventually take two BA degrees in Economics and German just to get things over with, and wander away from academia. This is a mistake from the regular point of view, but: you have a beautiful life here in 2013, and it was created by your mistakes as well as your victories. Your wife and children are beautiful, your house is warm, they just got new machines at the gym, you have a good physical therapist and a good cello teacher.

Yes, you are learning cello! At this age! You might learn wet-plate photography next, who knows. Life remains surprising and often in good ways, but it is always the present, at least so far.

January 23, 2013, though – that’s another thing entirely. That’s the future, I’m sure of it.

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22Jan / 2013

Careers in Science: Barology

The barologist does not study bars, nor does he think this is funny.

Some jokes are always funny, no matter how often you hear them, some are funny once, and some are tragic because they are so lame; these latter jokes are also known as Dad Jokes by some, and are best avoided.

One day, the barologist is standing there getting yelled at by his wife for something, and it dawns on him: I have slipped into an alternate universe, one where my wife is made at me for reasons unknown.

After that he devotes thought to alternate universes, and their implications.

There are alternate universes that are full-fledged universes, and there are those that are circumscribed; small eddies, looped-off instants, some only a second or two long, some a few seconds or minutes (rarely) that can be visited and revisited.

An example: the moment when the barologist and his daughter, who have been moving furniture, tilt up her heavy wardrobe, which they have moved into her living room, and the barologist is squatting there with his end of the wardrobe above his head, wondering if they will succeed in lifting it – that moment of not-knowing – will he get a hernia? Will his strength fail and it crash back down on top of him? Is he strong enough? Should they give up? Perhaps it is density that creates such looped-off alternate universes, because when the barologist thinks about it, the moment is dense with wondering, and not-knowing, and daring, and ultimately dropping all thoughts and fears and just lifting it, and the feeling of accomplishment when it stood.

The alternate universe the barologist is thinking about is about three seconds long, and he finds himself back in it now and then, squatting with a heavy wardrobe at arm’s length above his head.

Or, another one: a lady on a beach in Hawaii. The barologist is about 12, bored in front of his hotel, sitting in beach grass up the slope of a rather steep sandy beach, when a wave crashes right onto the lady and takes her white bikini, and her tan lines underneath are just as white. This is connected with two more seconds on the plane home the following day, when the boy barologist recognizes the woman, now fully dressed and on her way home too and he wonders if she recognizes him and what she is thinking if she does but she probably doesn’t.

Or, a blond woman standing naked in her upper-storey window as the barologist walks to work. Or, the barologist getting off a bus and slipping on the ice and falling on his hip and people asking if he is okay and the wind is knocked out of him and he says thanks, I’m fine, and limps offstage as fast as he can.

Or, et cetera.

The barologist wonders if it is too late to become a scientist of alternate universes.

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14Dec / 2012

“It’s a good thing you’re not a philosopher,”

said his daughter to him one fine morning in the car as he went on about something philosophical.

And he thought, you know, she’s right.

“You know, you’re right,” he said, even.

And he thought, thank goodness I never speak explicitly about philosophy.

Or write about it explicitly.

He wondered what it would read like if he wrote about philosophy explicitly.

It would sound like this:

The elevator starts moving but existentialism reaches over and hits the STOP button with a big thumb. Before Cartesianism knew it, he’s got both of Cartesianism’s hands in a viselike grip above her head and he’s pinning Cartesianism to the wall using his anguish… his other hand grabs her doctrine and yanks down, bringing her face up and his facticity is on hers… Her truth tentatively strokes his and joins it in a slow, erotic dance… His despair is hard against her corporeal body, which she reminds herself is the source of all untruth and illusions.

“It’s all pointless, in the end,” whispers existentialism in a gruff, stubbly whisper.

“That’s how it seems to you,” says heterophenomenology.

“Where’d you come from?” gasp existentialism and Cartesianism simultaneously, still whispering.

“Google Daniel Dennet,” says heterophenomenology. “You might want to try me, though, as an alternative to her,” it says, gesturing languidly towards Cartesianism.

“Not that it matters,” says nihilism.

At the touch of zeitgeist, Cartesianism quivers and gasps. Existentialism shakes his head as if to clear it from cobwebs, and walks around her there in the elevator full and increasingly fuller of philosophies and their throbbing elements, trailing his despair around the middle of her doctrine. The second time around, he suddenly flicks the despair, without any warning, and it stings Cartesianism underneath her ineffability … right in the metaphysical mind … The shock runs through her, and it’s the sweetest, strangest, hedonistic feeling …

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14Dec / 2012

Come outside

where the woodlice play

Where the worms run deep

And the ghosties sleep

Where the thorns are thick

And the mud is slick

And the wood is stacked so high

Come outside and I’ll tell you what

You whisper in your dreams

When you lie in bed and

I sit real close just inches

from your head

Come outside when the sun goes down

When the wind is cold when

the rain is strong

When it starts to snow

and I’ll tell you what

you want to know.

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13Dec / 2012

Careers in science: Helioseismology

She is quiet.

Silent.

They drive down the road at night, the helioseismologist is tired and his daughter isn’t talking.

She just got off work after a long school day and she is 15, and the helioseismologist understands there are a million reasons why she might not be speaking, and a million more he cannot imagine, never having been a 15 year old girl himself, only fearing them or admiring them from afar.

That’s all you can do with a 15 year old girl, fear or admire her. Or love her, as in this case.

The helioseismologist drives through drizzle and night and freeway traffic, someone always going somewhere and he is thankful like you wouldn’t believe for this girl, and for her sister, and for their mother. He is thankful for his brother and sister, and for his mom and dad, and his uncles and aunts. The helioseismologist is thankful for his grandma, and for his grandpa he never met. And maybe his other grandparents he never met, and all his cousins. And other friends and relatives, past and future.

The helioseismologist is thankful for his painting gear and his music gear, for his writing pads and his yoga mat and his big, big bed. He is thankful writing was invented, and clothing and agriculture, poetry and the Internet.

The helioseismologist is thankful for other people, and the idea of artisinal anything, although he prefers the idea of doing simple things well – making soups or fruit salad, or bread.

The helioseismologist is thankful for meditation and mass production, the scientific method, flowers, sunrises, sunsets, meteorological phenomena in general, and something else he forgot. He is thankful for symbioism, mitosis and meiosis, virii, bacteria and interesting parasites.

He is thankful for singing and crossword puzzles, weight-lifting, and cross-country skis. He is thankful for massage, kissing and cutley.

The helioseismologist is thankful for stars and kangaroos and hedgehogs, normal hogs and olives both black and green, his garden in the back yard and the houses he would build some day if he had the money, the houses that would approximate his beautiful heart.

He is thankful for these and many other things, but he would still like to talk to this girl, his daughter, the way they used to before they both got so tied and busy and whatever else.

The helioseismologist thinks about patting her on the leg; a love tap, his father called it.

The helioseismologist pats her on the leg.

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Category Archives: Das Gehirn

The god of the office watches snow

2013 metamorphosism.com International St. Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest

Dear Younger Self,

Careers in Science: Barology

“It’s a good thing you’re not a philosopher,”

Come outside

Careers in science: Helioseismology