Day: November 3, 2017
Emile is Jewish

Mary was sitting at her desk trying to decide whether to throw out a book called Schrodinger ‘s equation for Idiots.That title had more than one meaning, she thought to herself.
I think that is for the recycling bin, she told her cat, Emile.What a pity you can’t read.You could have read it.
I don’t want to read stuff like that.I only like Dad’s cartoon books.
Where are they, Mary asked him, her eyes shining like melting Danish butter on a hot croissant?
They are in that plastic box in the kitchen, Emile told her.I read them at night.
How can you read if there is no light?Please don’t start sinning as I don’t want you to have to become a Catholic and go to Confession
I can’t become a Catholic, said Emile.I am Jewish.
Well, St Paul was Jewish, Mary told him.Until he had an epileptic fit .
So having a fit can make you a Christian.That is very strange, the black cat told her with a twinkle in his eyes
Well, it’s not automatic, Mary replied.You have to pay.
What, pay to become a Christian, I don’t believe Jesus would like that.
Well, he may be quite indulgent, sometimes Mary giggled.However, the Vatican and its wealth might not be quite what he was thinking of when he gave the Sermon on the Mount.
What sort of mount was it, Emile enquired.Was it a horse?
No, it was more likely to have been a donkey as he was quite poor, you know
But he had things money can’t buy, the cat said philosophically.
Like women who poured oil over his feet.What sort was it,?Was it like that stuff Stan put in the car engine sometimes?
Don’t be so ridiculous.It was olive oil, Mary told him sternly.
Can we prove that Emile murmured? His feet were no salad iin need of dressing
No, I am using inductive reasoningMary stated logically.Olive trees are grown in that part of the world even now.
What is inductive reasoning, Emile mewed
Why it’s the opposite of deductive reasoning, of course, Mary stated wildly
I am glad I can’t read, Emile said.It’s bad for you to have to learn all of that.It was ok for the ancient Greeks.They had no televisions.I’d rather watch Andrea Bocelli and Hayley Westenra singing Vivo per lei.Whatever that means.She is from New Zealand by the way.
What difference does that make Mary teased him?
No need to be rude, Emile cried.I was only passing a remark
That was what Stan’s mother used to say when he told her off for saying my maple mousse was like something out of a tin.
Where was it from?
The Joy of Cookery. a big American cookbook or maybe Jewish Cookery by Florence Greenberg or I bought it in Marks and Spencers
Did you get that book because I am Jewish, Emile purred?
No, I didn’t even know you were.How did it happen?
My mother was living with a Rabbi in Liverpool and he told her she could not miaow on the Sabbath so she kind of assumed she was Jewish.As for my father.. nobody knows.
Emile, don’t start saying you are the Messiah.I have enough trouble already.I don’t want you to be walking on water and helping women taken in adultery
I was not me who took them, said Emile.I don’t even know where Adultery is.
I think I’ll ring 999.We need help before we go mad.
Sometimes going mad seems the better option, Mary said sadly.A few voices telling me what to do might be helpful
As long as they are not Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, Emile replied courteously. As for Freezer May…… we’ve suffered enough from seeing her in miniskirts holding DT’s hand!
And so say all of us.For he’s a jolly good yeller! Emile loves every cat
Michael Frayn,Copenhagen and Science
You’ll get eczema there as well

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What is poetry? A very good article

http://www.poetry.org/whatis.htm
“What is generally accepted as “great” poetry is debatable in many cases. “Great” poetry usually follows the characteristics listed above, but it is also set apart by its complexity and sophistication. “Great” poetry generally captures images vividly and in an original, refreshing way, while weaving together an intricate combination of elements like theme tension, complex emotion, and profound reflective thought. For examples of what is considered “great” poetry, visit the Pulitzer prize and Nobel prize sections for poetry.
The Greek verb ποιεω [poiéo (= I make or create)], gave rise to three words: ποιητης [poiet?s (= the one who creates)], ποιησις [poíesis (= the act of creation)] and ποιημα [poíema (= the thing created)]. From these we get three English words: poet (the creator), poesy (the creation) and poem (the created). A poet is therefore one who creates and poetry is what the poet creates. The underlying concept of the poet as creator is not uncommon. For example, in Anglo-Saxon a poet is a scop (shaper or maker) and in Scots makar.
Sound in poetry
Perhaps the most vital element of sound in poetry is rhythm. Often the rhythm of each line is arranged in a particular meter. Different types of meter played key roles in Classical, Early European, Eastern and Modern poetry. In the case of free verse, the rhythm of lines is often organized into looser units of cadence.”
Change my ways
I am caught. a wanderer in a maze
Interminable and long my lonesome path
Shall such malign confusion end my days?
Yet worse than this, is work that’s too low paid
The people making clothes can show no wrath
They too are caught. like wanderers in a maze
Capital has made the East our slaves.
In the stores , grown women grab and laugh
Shall such malign intrusion fill slaves’ days?
When we shop for clothes, they say we graze
When we buy the clothes who hires the staff?
We are caught. like wanderers in a maze
The only way to make things right is war
The Asians will be coming ,no use Mass.
Shall our malign intrusion end their way?
Wait, wait, they say, the bitterness will pass
But will our exploitation not harass?
I am a lonely wanderer in a maze
Shall my feeble fear not change my ways?
Dreams, my wordless thoughts.
I have filled my mind with dreams and thoughts
I have drawn conclusions that seem real
What’s of value’s not by effort bought.
I have drawn conclusions that seem real
What’s of value’s not by effort bought.
As Ted Hughes said, his fishing was the sport
Which brought both meditation and a meal.
I have studied minds and dreams and thoughts
I see, like that, new images are caught.
In silence and in noticing the feel
What’s of value’s not by effort bought.
What we find may not be what we sought
At first it may not show its wise appeal
I have found a mind by dreams and thoughts
In the night the images take flight.
God’s lioness destroys what is congealed
What’s of value’s not by effort wrought.
Like a butterfly, a flowering dart
Of love and beauty which was once concealed
I have found my mind by dreams, my wordless thoughts.
What’s of value’s not by effort bought.
The courage to write
You have to be brave to write because all you have ever felt, experienced or studied can be drawn up into your consciousness whilst you write.A friend of mine who is a writer put it like this.
“It has taken me to places I’d rather not have gone to.”
However she said she manages to live through it.At the time I had only written mathematical works so I didn’t understand what she meant.But I have now had some experiences which give me a hint of what she was trying to say.If you’ve had many fearsome experiences then these feelings may come up when you loosen the grip of consciousness.
However I have also found a spirit of laughter in me which is new.Step into the darkness without knowing.It’s only by going there that help may come.But the fear is that it won’t.You can’t get an insurance policy beforehand.
Are you stepping into a void or will there be something there?
Also in drawing or painting, it can take courage to draw what you perceive.I found that especially when drawing buildings and studying perspective.I’ll see if I can find a drawing to illustrate it.I have the feeling,
“No, No.It can’t be this steep a gradient.It’s too much”
And in being inside a building like Westminster Abbey or Durham Cathedral trying to assimilate the vision, the huge spaces and the power and size of the shapes can create awe or even terror.One can lose one’s sense of self entirely.But it can also be revivifying when one has returned.The fear is that one will not return.
Maybe it’s the same with relating to people as well?
Dover Beach BY MATTHEW ARNOLD
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
- Related
The fretting waves cry out with love’s demand

Underneath the shallow pools lies sand
Where shells are fractured by the ocean’s blows
We soon learn what being alive demands
To bare feet on sunny days beckoned
The warm wet trickles in between the toes
Underneath the shallow pools lies sand
In whose sums is our living reckoned?
Calculation, not so bleak it shows
We learn by pain, true living makes demands
God allows the abacus unchained
To sum us up as if we are unknown
Underneath the pools, are these his hands?
Who will be allowed and who detained?
Like refugees, we come to love alone
We try to be alive, despite the pain
Our hearts are fragile shells, not heavy stones
We, soft flesh, enraptured by framed bones.
Darkly on the beach we humans stand
The fretting waves cry out with love’s demands
Yeats “The Second Coming”
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html39)
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The beast
Should an older woman with a UTI
Buy a pair of trousers which she cannot wash and dry?
Wear three pairs of knickers and a culotte underslip
Don’t run to the lavatory in case you take a trip
Falling off the stairs is not my idea of death
I’d like to be in a bed when I take my final breath.
They say to hang your trousers outside on a tree
The air will cleanse them with a breeze while watched by startled bees
Or buy a handheld steamer as it will kill the germs
But never use it when your habitat is filled with garden worms
In the long run, it’s easier to throw the trousers out
As otherwise, I’ll wonder if I smell of doubt
I could improve my posture or train assertively
In case the men harass me when I’m on TV.
Stare at those old demons with a sharp bright eye
Tell them they are off to hell as soon as they shall die.
Jesus mixed with sinners but not those powerful apes
He is kindness incarnate to people who’ve been duped.
The fiery angels coming carry silver swords
Apocalyptic visions can hardly be real words
Women’s boundaries violated as if we have no worth
The Beast is slouching nearer, waiting to give birth.
Ode to a steam iron
Oh, steam iron how I love your heat
And how you make my clothes so neat.
A flat iron is no use to me
For no open fire is here, you see.
And though I liked the flickering coals
I feared those faces that looked droll.
They were in the flames and peered
At anyone who ventured near.
I wonder how the people past
Kept their trousers neat and pressed.
Now I’ve bought a hand steamer
To keep the germs off my femurs
I didn’t like to say, my crotch
In case the devil is on watch.
I never ever used to think
My body perfume was distinct.
And yet it may appeal to men
I don’t want to try again.
One old husband is enough
Though he did enjoy a cough
He had asthma and bad eyes
Looking out with wild surmise.
He saw my golden hair float by
As by his window, it did fly
All at once he fell for me
And we sat by an apple tree.
His clothes were wrinkled so I thought
I would iron them for a start.
He could darn and polish floors
Cook lamb chops and apple cores.
So my steam iron sees much use
I wonder if it’s self-abuse.
For as a woman feminist
I’m not meant to iron vests
I’m not meant to boil men’s socks
Nor underpants of interlock
I’m not meant to make them tea.
What a naughty person, me!
I must confess these wicked sins
Then I’ll polish my cake tins.
Satan wants me down in hell
Don’t say he needs work as well!
As he was an angel proud
I’ll save him into One Drive Cloud.
