And ... Sometimes it hurts instead
"Life's a bitch," the old man often says. He has had his own personal troubles, is tougher now, and made the stronger for it. But, when pain touches those near and dear to the old man, it hurts again.
Someone Like You - Adele's second hit song, recorded in 2010 and released in 2011, was inspired by Adele's a break-up with an ex-boyfriend. It deals with the need to move on, as Adele explains, "When I was writing it I was feeling pretty miserable and pretty lonely, which I guess kind of contradicts Rolling in the Deep. Whereas that was about me saying, 'I'm going to be fine without you', this is me on my knees really."
Hear more...
Adele is now married, mother of baby Angelo, and happy as a kid in a candy store. And, who the hell is the ex? Adele isn't telling, saying only that she wishes him the best.
Life's a bitch, the old man knows, but then a new day comes, a new relationship, and life goes on. I wish you nothing but the best. And, may your dreams come true.
The way it was
Listen to Adele's the original video. The old man thinks the video's film noir touch is more appropriate to a break-up. And the voice more bitter than sweet, but success changes things.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
The Parliament of Foules (Fowls)
This Valentine's week, the old man came across The Parliament of Foules (The Gathering of Birds) by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 - 1400). It is the first known recorded celebration of the holiday of Valentine's Day. The poem begins with an old poet's attempt to understand love. First he begins with an erudite discussion of Cicero's Somnium Scipionus. But an academic enterprise is doomed to failure. In Chaucer's words the venture, "ledeth (leads) to the sorweful (sorrowful) were (weir/fishing hole). Ther as a fissh in prison is al (all) drye (dry).
Then, the poet is taken to Nature's shady place where he watches over a gathering of the birds. All the species of birds pair off. And the powerful eagle makes its case for its mate, in competition with other birds of prey. The other species chime in and Nature is left to step in and put the debate off for another year.
The old man wonders, ... "Love's errand is not for a fowl (foules), but a fool?"
The poem is fairly short, 700 stanzas, written in Middle English, meaning that it takes a little thought to understand its subtle meanings.
It is quite lovely and wel wirth the rede:
The lyf (life) so short, the craft so long to lerne,
Thassay (They say) so hard, so sharp the conquering,
The dredful Ioy (Joy), that alwey slit (slips away) so yerne (young),
Al this mene (mean) I by love, that my feling
Astonyeth (Astonished) with his wonderful worching (working)
So sore y-wis (there known), that whan I on him thinke,
Nat wot I wel wher that I wake or winke (dream).
For al be that I knowe nat (not) love in dede (deed),
Ne (Nor) wot how that he quyteth (quietith) folk hir (her) hyre (here),
Yet happeth (happens) me ful ofte in bokes (books) rede (read)
Of his miracles, and his cruel yre (ire); Ther rede I wel he wol (will) be lord and syre (sire),
I dar not seyn (say), his strokes been so sore,
But God save swich (such) a lord! I can no more. ...
lines 1 through 15, and, as you wish, the rest of the poem
Sunday, February 10, 2013
William Styron
It is February. The weather is cold and grey. The wind is blowing and there is nowhere to go, all day. This reminds the old man of his favorite movie, Ground Hog Day with Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell and Chris Elliott.
The old man went to the movies with his wife to see Jude Law and Rooney Mara in Side Effects - wife's choice, not his.
Let's face it, the old man is not into depressing movies, even if they are well acted and well written. Movies should entertain. And life is depressing enough, especially in February when the air is cold and the wind blows.
There is a mention of William Styron in the movie. Let's see if I can remember. "It’s like a fog moving in over the intellect," I think, ...which is a quote from George Plimpton's 1999 interview with Styron, William Styron, The Art of Fiction No. 156 for the Paris Review. No, that can't be quite right, for it must have come from one of his books. Oh wait, here is the movie line - Emily, the disturbed patient, tells Banks, her psychiatrist, she exists within “a poisonous fog bank.”
The line comes from William Styron’s personal memoir about depression, Darkness Visible.
So, one thing leads to another. Or does it? Isn't that one of the features of a depressed mind? It is not always rational, at least in a conventional sense. Depression always leads one into an abysmal sense of loss, a fog bank, in Styron's words. As for Styron's books, haven't read them, don't recommend them. Why choose depression when one can choose life. Isn't an attitude just a way to think.
Since the movie Side Effects deals with the potentially devastating effects of pills on the brain, why not dispense with the pills? Ever notice that when a commercial comes on the television talking about depression, it plays depressing music and shows depressed people. If you didn't feel down and out before the commercial, you will afterwards.
Interviewed by George Plimpton in a Paris cafe for the Paris Review, Styron reiterates life's sense of despair. On writing, he explains:
If you made it this far into the article, maybe you will want to see the movie Side Effects. If so, here is a teaser. Warning, someone gets hurt in the movie.
The old man went to the movies with his wife to see Jude Law and Rooney Mara in Side Effects - wife's choice, not his.
Let's face it, the old man is not into depressing movies, even if they are well acted and well written. Movies should entertain. And life is depressing enough, especially in February when the air is cold and the wind blows.
There is a mention of William Styron in the movie. Let's see if I can remember. "It’s like a fog moving in over the intellect," I think, ...which is a quote from George Plimpton's 1999 interview with Styron, William Styron, The Art of Fiction No. 156 for the Paris Review. No, that can't be quite right, for it must have come from one of his books. Oh wait, here is the movie line - Emily, the disturbed patient, tells Banks, her psychiatrist, she exists within “a poisonous fog bank.”
The line comes from William Styron’s personal memoir about depression, Darkness Visible.
So, one thing leads to another. Or does it? Isn't that one of the features of a depressed mind? It is not always rational, at least in a conventional sense. Depression always leads one into an abysmal sense of loss, a fog bank, in Styron's words. As for Styron's books, haven't read them, don't recommend them. Why choose depression when one can choose life. Isn't an attitude just a way to think.
Since the movie Side Effects deals with the potentially devastating effects of pills on the brain, why not dispense with the pills? Ever notice that when a commercial comes on the television talking about depression, it plays depressing music and shows depressed people. If you didn't feel down and out before the commercial, you will afterwards.
Interviewed by George Plimpton in a Paris cafe for the Paris Review, Styron reiterates life's sense of despair. On writing, he explains:
PLIMPTONBummer, but true.
Do you enjoy writing?
STYRON
I certainly don’t. I get a fine, warm feeling when I’m doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day.
Let’s face it, writing is hell.
If you made it this far into the article, maybe you will want to see the movie Side Effects. If so, here is a teaser. Warning, someone gets hurt in the movie.
Do No Harm
This is not the slogan popularized by Google, "Do no evil." That was an exuberant exhortation by an up and coming Google engineer, Paul Buchheit, head of the budding Gmail project, sometime around the millenium, when Google was young and innocent.
Rather, it is a shortened version of the peroration in the Hippocratic Oath:
Hippocrates and his followers believed that disease had natural causes and was not a result of the disfavor of the gods. In the seven books of the Epidemics, the followers of Hippocrates reported on outbreak of different diseases in Greece. Their reports were always factual and objective. For instance Book One begins with a description of the weather that lead to an outbreak of disease in "Thasus, early in autumn, [where] the winter suddenly set in rainy before the usual time, with much northerly and southerly winds." Thassos.gr.
Google's version of "Do no harm" was issued in an attempt to wear the white hat, to be less commercial and serve the public good. In its prospectus, before its public offering in 2004, Google explained:
Since then, Google has grown into a behemoth that rivals Standard Oil in its heyday, the early 20th century. A hundred years later, Google will have to determine if it can combine profit with social responsibility. Check out its corporate philosophy, and one sees that the do no evil manifesto is still proudly stated. See, About Google, Company, What we believe.
Paul Buchheit's Gmail has come a long way, and Blogger, which is an off-shoot of Gmail, has become an open platform for men and women, old and young to write, plead, pontificate, and yes, even bloviate.
Do no evil, do no harm. Either way, it is a good way to live.
Rather, it is a shortened version of the peroration in the Hippocratic Oath:
I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel...More to the point, Book One of the Epidemics, section 2, paragraph 4, states that the physician who treats a disease must:
... be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future- must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.Hippocrates, and the doctors of the Hippocratic School of Medicine, were from the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.. They lived during the Golden Age of Greece, when the Persian threat had been defeated, and Athens, under Pericles, turned its efforts to fostering knowledge and culture. Instead of war, Athens' efforts turned to the construction of the buildings of the Acropolis, including the Parthenon.
Hippocrates and his followers believed that disease had natural causes and was not a result of the disfavor of the gods. In the seven books of the Epidemics, the followers of Hippocrates reported on outbreak of different diseases in Greece. Their reports were always factual and objective. For instance Book One begins with a description of the weather that lead to an outbreak of disease in "Thasus, early in autumn, [where] the winter suddenly set in rainy before the usual time, with much northerly and southerly winds." Thassos.gr.
Google's version of "Do no harm" was issued in an attempt to wear the white hat, to be less commercial and serve the public good. In its prospectus, before its public offering in 2004, Google explained:
Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains...
Since then, Google has grown into a behemoth that rivals Standard Oil in its heyday, the early 20th century. A hundred years later, Google will have to determine if it can combine profit with social responsibility. Check out its corporate philosophy, and one sees that the do no evil manifesto is still proudly stated. See, About Google, Company, What we believe.
Paul Buchheit's Gmail has come a long way, and Blogger, which is an off-shoot of Gmail, has become an open platform for men and women, old and young to write, plead, pontificate, and yes, even bloviate.
Do no evil, do no harm. Either way, it is a good way to live.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
All is Grist for the mill
Grist may seem a strange topic for an old man to talk about.
But the word is onomatopoetic and the old man likes words that get to the point. Moreover, the week before, while shooting pictures of the Little Walnut Pratt Truss bridge in Bois d'Arc, Kansas, he came across the remains of an old gristmill. Finally, the old man likes grits, which is corn grist coarsely ground.
Hey, old men don't always make sense, that is, unless you think about it.
Grist is corn or wheat grain separated from its chaff and ready for grinding at a grist mill. It also means the grain that has been ground. It is not too hard to guess that grist comes from Old English, grinden, meaning to grind.
Grits, which sounds a lot like grist, is simply corn ground coarsely. It is popular in the South and with the old man. And, in case you were wondering, corn ground finely is corn meal, good for making corn muffins.
Gristmills have been around a long time. Strabo, the Greek geographer who popularized the map, reports of a mill in ancient Pontus, on the Black Sea, where Strabo was born. This was in the year 71 BC, about the time when Spartacus was giving the Romans fits, and Julius Caesar was just starting his military career. Certainly gristmills had been around long before this, and maybe Strabo, who traveled extensively and to Egypt, was only mentioning the mill in Pontus because of the connection to home and the mills' familiarity.
William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066, thought gristmills important enough to be counted in the Domesday Book. That is grist for thought.
And this thought leads the old man on to the proverb, "all is grist for the mill", which symbolically states what the old man blathers about.
The mill is where the grist is ground, and the miller is the grinder of the grist. A miller ground whatever grain was brought to him, charging a portion of the final product for the service. Therefore, all grain coming to the mill represented income.The miller surely held an important place in village life, for every farmer and consumer came to him, either to sell grain or to buy grits and flour.
We also know that the mill was important by the number of phrases concerning mills that have come into common use. Jut to name a few, these are: "holding one's nose to the grindstone", "carrying a millstone around one's neck", "to be put through the mill", and "run of the mill". All these phrases are so descriptive as to not need further explanation. Read on if you like semantics.
But the word is onomatopoetic and the old man likes words that get to the point. Moreover, the week before, while shooting pictures of the Little Walnut Pratt Truss bridge in Bois d'Arc, Kansas, he came across the remains of an old gristmill. Finally, the old man likes grits, which is corn grist coarsely ground.
Hey, old men don't always make sense, that is, unless you think about it.
 |
| Remains of the Gristmill at Bois d'Arc, Kansas |
Grist is corn or wheat grain separated from its chaff and ready for grinding at a grist mill. It also means the grain that has been ground. It is not too hard to guess that grist comes from Old English, grinden, meaning to grind.
Grits, which sounds a lot like grist, is simply corn ground coarsely. It is popular in the South and with the old man. And, in case you were wondering, corn ground finely is corn meal, good for making corn muffins.
Gristmills have been around a long time. Strabo, the Greek geographer who popularized the map, reports of a mill in ancient Pontus, on the Black Sea, where Strabo was born. This was in the year 71 BC, about the time when Spartacus was giving the Romans fits, and Julius Caesar was just starting his military career. Certainly gristmills had been around long before this, and maybe Strabo, who traveled extensively and to Egypt, was only mentioning the mill in Pontus because of the connection to home and the mills' familiarity.
William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066, thought gristmills important enough to be counted in the Domesday Book. That is grist for thought.
And this thought leads the old man on to the proverb, "all is grist for the mill", which symbolically states what the old man blathers about.
The mill is where the grist is ground, and the miller is the grinder of the grist. A miller ground whatever grain was brought to him, charging a portion of the final product for the service. Therefore, all grain coming to the mill represented income.The miller surely held an important place in village life, for every farmer and consumer came to him, either to sell grain or to buy grits and flour.
We also know that the mill was important by the number of phrases concerning mills that have come into common use. Jut to name a few, these are: "holding one's nose to the grindstone", "carrying a millstone around one's neck", "to be put through the mill", and "run of the mill". All these phrases are so descriptive as to not need further explanation. Read on if you like semantics.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Happy Cosmic New Year
Actually, no one has identified the day the Cosmic New Year starts, so why not tomorrow? Let the Old Man get credit for something.
 |
| Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies collide |
Image Credit: NASA; ESA; Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI; T. Hallas; and A. Mellinger.
Another year has passed. If One was counting since the beginning of the universe, then this would be the 13,750,000,000th year, give or take 11,000,000 years, since creation. Then again, for the first 9 billion years or so the earth didn't exist, so a celestial year is not a good measure to count on a grand scale.
The One counting would be God. This is because man didn't appear on the scene until roughly 200,000 years ago. Don't ask me how anyone knows this, it all seems a bit conjectural. But conjecture is all we have. And, it is in the nature of humankind to wonder who we are, where we came from, and where we are going to. Counting is a way we measure the passage of time.
A year is quite simply the time it takes the earth to travel fully around the sun. And since the earth is returning to its natural starting point, this is a good way for earthlings to keep track of time. Keep in mind that even though the earth remains in orbit around the sun, the sun itself is slowly spiraling around the Milky Way Galaxy in a trip that will take 220 million years, something the astronomers call a cosmic year. Given the age of the solar system as 4 to 5 billion years old, that makes for about 20 trips for our own solar system around the Milky Way Galaxy. As for the galaxy itself, NASA predicts it is headed for a collision with the Andromeda Galaxy in about 4 billion years, a little less than another 20 cosmic new years.
Watch: NASA, when galaxies collide. Read the story.
Have a Happy Cosmic New Year!
 | |
| NASA Earth, Stressless recliner |
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Santa was an Old Man
What do you see when you look at me?
A jolly Old Man with twinkling eyes?
An Old Man merry and wise?
What do you think when you look at me?
Will I put presents under the Christmas tree?
While you dream of faraway places.
Oh now, does anyone believe that a few good graces
Should outweigh so many mistakes through the year?
Have you been naughty? Have you been nice?
Have you been kind once or twice?
Never fear nor shed a tear for Santa is forgiving
You see, an Old Man has little time left for living
All that he has is a pipe for pleasure and,
A cup of strong ale for good measure.
Jest if you must for an Old Fool like me
For I trust in the kindness of all that I see.
Source:
This poem is based on a poem by Phyllis McCormick that is out there called Cranky Old Man. The actual poem seems to have been Crabbit Old Woman, with crabbit the Scottish word for cranky. The tale concerns an old woman in a nursing home. The sentiment seems to make the rounds of hospitals and homeless shelters. You can see one version of the poem here.
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