~Of Other Cultures~

Once, Every Blue Moon

2010-10-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

Revelry.

Revelry like no one has ever seen or heard.

The smaller, and therefore quicker creatures are the first into the clearing. They run and dance, squealing as the exact moment has finally arrived.

Fur and feather gleam in the twilight, and what little light is there on its own reflects back from the creatures 10 fold. The more animals that arrive, the brighter it is.

There are no predators. It isn't that they do not show up, but they put their less admirable, creature-eating habits aside for the sake of the evening, and lion and lamb dance side by side.

Some of the animals play flutes and horns, and others (with prehensile digits) strum. Of course, their instruments are conceived from rocks and roots, and wouldn't sound very nice to us at all... but then again it is the ear of the listener that determines the true beauty of music, and what ears these are!

There is no food, only music and dancing. (I can assure you; If there were food, it would be very tasty. However, everybody just forgets to think about eating for the whole bit. This, I suppose, is a good thing. Most animal-time is spent worrying for food, and it is not as pleasant as with people. It is, as I stated, a worry.)

As the animals shine brighter, their stripes and spots are drowned out, and they become indistinguishable from one another.

Granted, you see all of the animals and know them quite clearly, just not which is which.

If I were to look at an alligator, a bunny, and a chicken all holding hands and dancing in a circle, I would be quite certain that I was looking at an alligator, a bunny, and a chicken... but not quite certain on the matter of which one was which... or where one ended and the other began.

Dear Cristin,

2009-11-06T09:39:00.000-08:00

I'm awfully and terribly sorry I ran into you last night.
They really were very nice teeth.
Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.
-Kyle ... (ph. #)

PS-- If I could go back in time, I would trade places so that I would have to have the root canals and brown teeth.

This just happened...

2009-08-28T23:41:00.001-07:00

Chase,

You know how we are.
You'll say one thing, I'll say another.

You make this threat, I make that one...

Well...

I got your colorful message in my voicemail, a brief moment ago, and it touched me. Something deep down inside of me was moved.

...to kill you.

But, being as far away from you as I am, I settled on writing you a nasty facebook message.

Now, I need to take a moment and explain something... When I find a neat website, or have an idea that I want to remember, I generally login to gmail, paste the idea or web address in an email, jot my own name into the "To:" box, and send my idea to myself for later reading...

In my haste to slander you this evening, and out of this habit I've formed through gmail, I typed my own name into facebook's "To:" box this evening...

Which wouldn't ordinarily be a problem, except that one day, years ago, I searched my own name on facebook and friended some other guy who has my name and whom I've never met before...

Well, needless to say, I just sent the following message to a complete stranger:

*begin message*

I have a key to your house.
I'll touch your stuff whenever I want.

Make sure your books are upright.

*end message*

Do all your shopping... at Wal-Mart!

2009-02-22T14:46:00.000-08:00

NPR's This American Life just ran a segment on a study by two researchers named Komar and Melamid on which aspects of music people loved the most. From their results, they were able to produce a song that would be statistically likely to be liked by atleast 72 +/- 12% of all people (a love song. low tonality. a black woman's voice).

Well.

They also composed the statistically WORST song!!

Including content about:
obscure holidays. cowboy music. walmart. oh, and the national anthem.

as well as:
tubas. opera. banjos. rapping. children singing. bagpipes.

At one point, a kid yells unlikeable words through a megaphone, and I think I heard "Two party system!" and "George Stephenopoulos!" in there.

Hahahahahahahaha!!

so here it is:

http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/komar_melamid/KomarMelamid_The-Most-UnwantedSong.mp3

My favorite part of it all are the segments on: Ramadan, Labor Day, and Yom Kippur.

There's an article about it here:
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/a-scientific-at.html

Zing!

2009-02-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

Preface:
(1) I work with silicon, we call these things I work with "wafers".
(2) I have to work with them in a clean room or they don't work.
(3) A "Von Neumann machine" is a theoretical machine that makes copies of itself. Yeah. Think about that.

David: "Too bad you can't work on wafers at home"
Me: "Nilla wafers, maybe"
David: "You should create a nilla wafer capable of manufacturing copies of itself"
Me: "You mean a Von Nilla machine?"

Set aaand spike.

Poet's Death...

2009-02-01T12:04:00.000-08:00

He was an American treasure.
"Dog's Death", by: John Updike

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog!
Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.

The passing of an era, the ending of an age...

2009-01-25T20:22:00.000-08:00

Kids are chumps for video games. They'll give up their younger brother or sister for an early release of the new Starcraft sequel or the next patch in World of Warcraft, and some adults will, too.

I've been wondering for many a year when my time would come, when I would reach that fateful day when I realized "I'm not into video games". (I swore to myself I would be a gamer all my life, into full adulthood, so I could play with my children one day)

While my loftier thoughts would admit that the form of narrative changes from culture to culture, I seem to be having trouble getting past this:

It's over.

I like to believe that it was all worth it, that either I'm a better driver with enhanced motor skills or that I have more improved peripheral vision than the non-gaming population.

I don't think I'm entirely empty-handed... it was a sweet ride and the stories I experienced served to set my moral compass in a way that is mine and mine only, but the ride is over, chief.

Today, I learned to use footnotes.

2008-10-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

The rhinoceraus actually has several horns, all but one of which are too small to see^[2]

^[2] (Rumpfordshire, pp. 67-793, 1972)

As Transcribed from the Leaflet of a Mugwort, Rummaged from the Forest Floor

2007-01-17T22:18:00.000-08:00

Love Poetry
by Farsnips the Goblin

G is for your gaping nostrils.
R is for your rattish tail.
E is for your eleventh toe.
L is for your lumpy back.
...and for the way I love you!
I is your ill-temper.
N is for the knot you gave me on my head.
D is for the dozen roses I sent you last week.
and A is for your armpits. Their hair is smelly and matted.

G-R-E-L-L-I-N-D-A
Grellinda!
I love you.

Brief yet Effectually, #1

2007-01-07T00:25:00.000-08:00

~Skiddice~
(-"ish", like "licorice")

In my formative years, I knew the likeness of this term in its relation to Baroness Mittens. She was our cat, and the true lord of our estate.

Skiddice, however, is the first in our scheme of mythical languages!

Fact #1: Skiddids (who speak skiddice) are at the bottom of their food chain, beneath baby rabbits and fleas^[1], but atleast above grass.^[2]

Fact #2: The creature lives its life on the run, and its gettings-about must be brief, accordingly.

Fact #3: Such brevity necessitates timely communication.

It is within the throws of death that survival birthed a language to these tiny people (Did I mention that their ears are large? They are, from birth. It is not uncommon for newborns to be mistaken for butterflies).

The language makes no use of vowels or syllables; those things take too long. Skiddids yell all of their consonants at once, in one instant. What is a shriek to us is as much as a whole lecture series to them, and they understand every bit of it.

They are masters of lingual discernment.

You should know that it is unwise to lie to a skiddid. It will pick apart every telling detail in your voice, and read you like a book. (If you should happen to make this mistake, do not worry too much. It unlikely that your skiddid will live long enough to spill any beans.)

I suspect you will find execution difficult, having to take all of those vowels out and keep consanants out of eachother's business.

Regardless, skiddice is worth knowing about and keeping in good practice (I practice my own skiddice 4 times in a week), as you never know when your own affairs will require a speedy tending to.

^[1] This goes without mentioning baby rabbits with fleas. They, too, are quite deadly.
^[2]Wet grass.

A Breviary of Mythical Beasts, Jan 07.

2007-01-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

Breviary of Mythical Beasts #2
~Prancy Beasts~

Horrid! Really. There are few ways to express my distaste for this variety of beast, and any of them is hardly written word. Pugh!

Dear friend, let me warn you, now; God's Great and Infinite Mercy be upon you should you cross one of these beasties.

Alligators will rip away your arms and legs. Elephants will trample you. Hippos will crush you to smitherines. Atleast, with the three of these, you get to die at the end.

You have to live with prancy beasts... and look at them all of the time. Believe me, they make sure of it.

At first, they draw you in with their froofy feathers or silky, slick coats.
Then it's "oh, splendid!" this, and "ooh, lovely!", that.
But then, oh ho, then-> they prance.
They prance and prance.
They prance the prance of a thousand prances.
They prance under the sun and the moon. They prance over rivers and streams, and high on mountain tops.

And the rest of nature has to watch.
All of it.

Do you know, reader, what happens then? Do springs break and gush forth? Does the sky bluen? Do eagles soar and lions roar?

No.

The trees sag.
And the flowers pale.
The other animals get fed up and go home....
Because these prancy ones have to be watched.

And they do no watching of their own.

I do not know if you know this, but that is taking and never giving! They are thieves! Rogues! Sparkly and selfish scoundrels, sucking joy from the rest of us!

Why not tell them to stuff their noses into holes? Or, can not a kind and correcting word appeal to reasonable senses?

It can not.

This is how such conversations go...

Other Creature: "Why do you fluff and puff about, so? It is very exhausting to watch you all of the time without the slightest of respites."

Prancy Beast: "Why, yes! My tail does bob above my shoulder level, now that you mention it! I never noticed! I am perky and fanciful!"

That's right! You could look one of these animals clean in the face, speak any of the great unspeakables, and it would only hear an airy compliment about how it keeps its paws so clean and soft or the lovely way that its ears tuck and fold when it yawns. It would probably even thank you.

Very simply put:

All beasts are strokes in the great tapestry of the Mythical World, and it is unfortunate that some strokes will miss the bigger picture. It is a very lovely world.

~More On Goblins~

2006-12-24T19:03:00.000-08:00

(Goblins Cont'd)

~The Great Goblin Gooblaroo~
Once a year, it is the responsibility of the Goblin King to bring all goblins together for one assembly, the Great Goblin Gooblaroo. If you are thinking, "That is the worst idea in all of history", it is.

However, the event persists, and each year's goings on are more heinous than any previous.

"That seems like an awful lot of organization... Wouldn't goblins shy away from such semblances of order?"

Yes, and that is why it works so well. It used to be that the Goblin King would round up subjects with a fangly cane. This was all sorts of trouble.

Nowadays, he sends every goblin an invitation for noontime tea on each of the 364 days that is not the Gooblaroo. You see, a goblin will most certainly show up when he thinks he hasn't been invited.

(Since we are on the subject...)
~Goblin Etiquette~
Goblins are neither timely nor prompt, and they miss all of their dinner parties.

~Goblin Kings~
(i) Who they are
(ii) How they come about
and (iii) Where I suspect they will end up

(i) The Goblin King is responsible for all goblins. He must balance this responsibility with the terrible behavior necessary to remain in the high favor of his subjects. Very difficult.

(ii) Goblin King's are human children, kidnapped by goblins at near-after-infancy. Goblins shoot for the youngest they can find for two reasons; (1) Young children know less rules, and (2) The younger the King, the longer it will be until the goblins have to find a new one.

(iii) All Goblin King's go the same road. They reach 11-or-12ish, decide that perpetual disarray is simply not for them, and relinquish their King-dom to pursue more dynamic careers (finance, bond trading, and metallurgical engineering are all typical).

The resulting unruly goblin mass is always more than happy to kidnap a new King, as that old one was getting rather grown-uppish, anyway.

~Goblin Mothers~
There are no goblin mothers.

Author's Note-> Exciting News for Our Publication!

2006-12-24T10:26:00.000-08:00

Those of us who are neither beastmasters nor beasts ourselves likely wonder how to get about in the Mythical World with no means of communicating with its indwelling populace.

Wonder no more!

As an individual previously confronted with said situation (that of having no means of asking one's way about), and having since then conquered said shortcoming, I, the Lord Caldwell, will be providing the following:

~A Brief yet Effectually All-Inclusive Guide to the Languages of the Mythical World, may it serve you well~

We will cover vocabulary, as well as such topics as "Asking for the Washroom", "Proper Tusk-Animal Etiquette, as Not to Be Gored", and "Beasts with Whom You May as Well Not Even Bother".

The periodical will continue indefinitely, and will have no interferences with our already existing Breviary of Mythical Beasts..., which will be published in its usual, timely fashion on the 1st of each month.

I look forward to this endeavor and to your preparedness for getting along in the Mythical World!

A Breviary of Mythical Beasts, Dec 06.

2006-12-03T00:28:00.000-08:00

Breviary of Mythical Beasts #1
~Clever Beasts~

The human is the 4th cleverest animal on the planet. We are preceded by the Dragon, the Arctic Pocket Bear, and babies.

Our friend, said bear...
The Arctic Pocket Bear is so named because of its size and its affinity for warm places. When it remains unseen, it is a pleasant bear. Early reports of the bear were rumors of warm and furry lumps that appeared in sleeping bags at night and disappeared by the morning.

The APB stands 8 1/2 inches upright, and looks something like a polar bear. Imagine a stuffed teddy bear turned white and come alive, and you've imagined the Pocket Bear.

"How cute! What makes this bear so clever?"

Let's consider regular-sized bears. While gentle creatures in their homes and around their loved ones, regular-sized bears have been known to transform into brutal kill machines at the drop of a button. I once saw a bear pull the wall off the side of a house, and then tramp about inside eating everybody. That is how bears live.

The APB can do no such thing! If he went on a killing rampage, he would scuff up some walls, and then be petted. What sets this tiny animal apart??

The Arctic Pocket Bear has mastered the concept of perspective! That's right. They sneak right up close (not difficult-> they're snowy colored and in the Arctic), and then make a big fuss from only a few inches away. Very menacing, indeed.

Imagine, for just a moment, that you're being attacked by a polar bear. Do you stop and think, "I wonder... this might be a very small and clever bear who has managed to sneak up on me"? I do not think that you do.

Arctic animals flee upon such an encounter, and this is how the bear provides for its appetite: scaring predators away from already-caught food.

It is a magnificently cunning creature, and it is listed here, thusly.

~Dragons~
Everybody knows about these things, by now. It used to be that even the most well-versed storytellers had only a snippet or two of dragon lore. These days, you can see a dragon in movies and on t-shirts.

I once asked a little boy what he wanted to be when he grew up. He responded, "Snrout!" (that was the noise he made) "I want to be a dragon!"

They're everywhere.

They're also nowhere... the real ones, that is. The last of the most abundant dragon bloodline was hunted down roughly 120 years ago and made into boots. That's the way things go with dragons.

Except for one.

Pepplekep is a rural village near some mountains in Africa. Nobody knows which ones.

In 1866, the Mayor (or Mayor-equivalent for tribal African nations) of Pepplekep was leaving a meeting of the Pepplekepian Association of Philanthropists and Bureaucrats (or Pepplekepian Association of Philanthropists and Bureaucrats- equivalent for tribal African nations) when he was suddenly and most unexpectedly surprised by a dragon.

He closed his eyes, raised his hands above his head to accomodate easier swallowing, and waited for the end.

The dragon blinked twice, and made a deal. "You are simple, and you do not wear boots. May I stay?".

And the dragon became a Pepplekepian, which he remains to this day.

Clever?

Dragons live for thousands of years and sleep on piles of gold. Who wouldn't be proud? Overcoming such inevitable pride would require a very culturally aware dragon, which is what this dragon must have been. He would have to go far out of his way to keep well-informed (dragons do not have newspaper stands, you know), and such sleuthful planning and diplomacy makes him (the only remaining representative of the dragon population) a Clever Beast.

~As for Babies~
Babies have everything they want, and they never work.

~On Goblins~

2006-11-25T12:04:00.000-08:00

(A Brief Introduction)

As one of the more highly enlightened individuals on the subject, I have taken it upon myself to properly educate you, oh, general public, on the seemingly nonsensical (yet most amusing) world of goblinry.

First and foremost, you should know that I am not alone. There are several of us (along the order of 30 or so) who've devoted some time to uncovering this clever little world. I have only directly met 3 of them (experts, not goblins), being that the majority live in unimaginably far away places (do not bother imagining, you really won't come close).

All of this to say...
* There are other opinions, dear reader, and I am not the End All - Be All Great Goblin Expert of the Goblin World. It is right and fair that you should read this alongside the other great goblin literature, and form your own well-rounded opinion about goblins and their curious affairs.*

Now, with all of that silly mess out of the way, let's get down to business.

Nonsense is the backbone of goblin culture. Each day in their world represents a billion tireless little efforts to attain that paradise of perpetual disarray and hooliganism. But, how do they farm food to eat?? What domicile, then, do they sleep in at night?? How, for Pete's sake, do they form healthy relationships, marry, and propogate??

These are all very reasonable questions.

To understand the goblin world only requires a simple change in perspective! Very briefly: what makes little sense to us makes all of the sense in the world to a goblin, and vice versa.

Let me demonstrate. Consider the very next absurd notion that runs through your head.

(Sample absurd notions are as follows:
-> Drink spilling
-> Food throwing
-> Hair pulling
-> Cat kicking
-> Curtain lighting)

For the average goblin, all of those is as intuitive as "What a lovely day, a good and healthy walk will help to clear my senses", or "Hmm, I am famished. I suppose it's time I fixed myself a nice salad", and so on, and so forth.

Such is the nature of the goblin world.

Such is also why goblins are infatuated with our human children, and why they are always trying to kidnap them and turn them into their goblin kings (It happened to this kid I knew. They made him grow a tail and wear a crown. He escaped and has to sit leaning to one side.)

~Goblin Language~
Goblins speak in garble. It follows our explanation from above to say that we can't understand them, nor can they understand us.

However:

By what most deem severe coincidence, our sleep talk happens to be an EXACT form of the purest goblin language. So much so, in fact, that not only does Ralph Ferguson (lifelong sleeptalker of Chester, Wy... also our example) unknowingly sleep-speak perfect goblin, he rattles off new and profound goblin truths! The greatest goblin philosophes are known for frequent gatherings around human sleep talkers.

Contrariwise, were we to ever come across some careless goblin mid-slumber in the wide open, it is likely that we would hear such profundities as would put Newton, Des Cartes, Plato, and all the rest of them to utter shame.