tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59538063850601681242024-03-19T00:34:10.125+08:00From the Narrow DesertThinking and synching, not necessarily in that orderWm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.comBlogger1423125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-28791991368388159092024-03-18T16:13:00.002+08:002024-03-18T16:13:19.836+08:00Skeletor, hieroglyphic-bearing arthropods, and the JudgementSome unmanned untethered free association here. It's a constitutional right, after all.<div><br /></div><div>My last post, "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/eclipse-skull-and-crossbones.html">Eclipse skull and crossbones</a>" called up a vague memory of a meme in which He-Man's arch-enemy Skeletor was standing with the sun directly behind his head, making it look as if he had a halo -- or an eclipse with a skull instead of a moon. I tried and failed to track it down. One of the search prompts I tried, though, <i>skeletor halo</i>, did turn up eclipse imagery:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWBotqFEPlTr1SWzAZnhGwesfWz8O0Rumrx-QBKYWPmY2-PzmYQCLsL6pmhXjVILqqkKXgiVRgzHNFCMAk0xys-Zw7_V6Wt4CEY6vzKmjAqeLI2z9lnn1OVrQfK8ADqSAdljDk39_fwDTkxF-j85B2DGbDbDXGhR2Vy-0DMYlwKms7J9bjLy1maWoZssU/s540/skeletor%20halo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWBotqFEPlTr1SWzAZnhGwesfWz8O0Rumrx-QBKYWPmY2-PzmYQCLsL6pmhXjVILqqkKXgiVRgzHNFCMAk0xys-Zw7_V6Wt4CEY6vzKmjAqeLI2z9lnn1OVrQfK8ADqSAdljDk39_fwDTkxF-j85B2DGbDbDXGhR2Vy-0DMYlwKms7J9bjLy1maWoZssU/s16000/skeletor%20halo.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div>In addition to the skull imagery, we have crossed bandoliers, suggesting the X-marks-the-spot of the 2017 and 2024 eclipse paths, centered on Makanda, Illinois. My post "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/makanda.html">Makanda</a>" is about the coincidence of seeing Makanda on an eclipse map shortly after reading about a giant spider named Makanda in a Colin Wilson novel.<br /><div><br /></div><div>This giant spider connection made me take notice when -- casting my net a bit wider and just searching for <i>skeletor meme</i> -- I found this:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNhxzKgH1CEMBEbZoNzMfW0GX5gCOeHaxLO_8zdKqfj61ENWA8K7Ol-8CHJT94TOoj4g4RfbQqP_D-ejvBXQw9TgJfshVSFkwNg9jRZgtRQYpiU5yZv165jHRYi59RrDkP5dw0QnDtUtQUhO228QpmTBn3V_Eb0uvnzmMSaqa0-XZ7R6V-SPII5vAirbs/s676/skeletor%20spiders.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNhxzKgH1CEMBEbZoNzMfW0GX5gCOeHaxLO_8zdKqfj61ENWA8K7Ol-8CHJT94TOoj4g4RfbQqP_D-ejvBXQw9TgJfshVSFkwNg9jRZgtRQYpiU5yZv165jHRYi59RrDkP5dw0QnDtUtQUhO228QpmTBn3V_Eb0uvnzmMSaqa0-XZ7R6V-SPII5vAirbs/s16000/skeletor%20spiders.png" /></a></div><br /><div>Skulls and spiders led me to the black-and-yellow garden spiders that are common in much of the United States: I've seen a few in North Carolina with markings that make the cephalothorax look like a death's-head. I can't find a great example of this online, but here's something to give you the general idea:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC_MqZnBIioayeIHSvKQ0MVVmWG0MiCZIBv2k-TYMgiDfg7t6SZktHTGHjehbwTez3jd9rgZrd3yxYIanMqTymo7ns7eTJQhdPXoc91rAhYT12yDw0pt9WymdrdKpNQro_RipDUEPImb-t6nkdAXBg45CPsfbOVGE3TGJvjVYmzOLYgApRR4gGdA_uk4U/s540/skull%20spider.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC_MqZnBIioayeIHSvKQ0MVVmWG0MiCZIBv2k-TYMgiDfg7t6SZktHTGHjehbwTez3jd9rgZrd3yxYIanMqTymo7ns7eTJQhdPXoc91rAhYT12yDw0pt9WymdrdKpNQro_RipDUEPImb-t6nkdAXBg45CPsfbOVGE3TGJvjVYmzOLYgApRR4gGdA_uk4U/s16000/skull%20spider.png" /></a></div><br /><div>Besides the vaguely skull-like cephalothorax (<i>much</i> better examples exist but apparently not on the Internet), note the posture, typical of this family of spiders, with the legs arranged in an X and the death's-head at the center. (Incidentally, I used a similar garden spider photo to illustrate a post about <i>giant</i> spiders: "<a href="https://winkingback.blogspot.com/2020/07/whitley-strieber-with-between-two-and.html">Whitley Strieber with between two and four giant spiders</a>.")</div><div><br /></div><div>The spider pictured above has a fairly uninteresting bumblebee-type pattern, but many garden spiders have much more intricate designs. When I lived in Maryland, I used to make detailed sketches of their markings in a notebook, thinking of them as "hieroglyphics" and imagining that they might mean something, though I never made any attempt to crack the code.</div><div><br /></div><div>That memory of copying down "hieroglyphics" off the backs of spiders reminded me of something I'd read about several months ago in the <i>Cultural History of the Book of Mormon</i>: a fringe Mormon called Goker Harim who claimed to have translated the writings of the Brother of Jared off the back of an insect of some sort -- a beetle? a spider, even? I found the reference in the <i>Cultural History</i> -- it was a cicada -- and tried to track down the source document online for more details, but to no avail. (I'm not going to pay $9.99 to download it, sorry.) Though I failed to find any details of the story of how the cicada was found and "translated," I did finally find a Word document with a picture of the cicada's markings and an accompanying essay:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8QiZ-ZyO9bIKqf9v18yZTat_z_yBStCsCSb22Dq7U-1tZa7VdWZKB6t5WQYNenfKwzRDEN9dxvsByNCsv9HcxM6cIcn8ilhSmA2dg3TtoFgPYkWY_7v6D6D9VZJtOXViXzZ3f2UgaUXSoejv5e3n8zIZG9VZzS1ik-gvHp1THN2W2Kp1yrwFu0i-CNK8/s772/judgement%20tablet.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="772" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8QiZ-ZyO9bIKqf9v18yZTat_z_yBStCsCSb22Dq7U-1tZa7VdWZKB6t5WQYNenfKwzRDEN9dxvsByNCsv9HcxM6cIcn8ilhSmA2dg3TtoFgPYkWY_7v6D6D9VZJtOXViXzZ3f2UgaUXSoejv5e3n8zIZG9VZzS1ik-gvHp1THN2W2Kp1yrwFu0i-CNK8/s16000/judgement%20tablet.png" /></a></div><br /><div>It's called "The Judgement Tablet" -- with the British spelling of <i>judgement</i>, even though the author is (I think) American. The essay begins thus:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">The Judgement Tablet, also called the Covenant Tablet of the Gentiles, is an advanced style tablet. It has a base and top section in addition to the usual four glyphs. It was written by Achee [i.e., the Brother of Jared] and preserved on a cicada. Written on it is the whole course of history from before creation till after the Final Judgement.</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>One of the coincidences noted in my last post was the use of the phrase "judgement day" -- British spelling -- by two different Americans in connection with the skull-moon theme. The cicada tablet essay doesn't actually use the phrase "judgement day," but "Final Judgement" is close enough.</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-81348742256950888562024-03-18T08:18:00.000+08:002024-03-18T08:18:04.092+08:00Eclipse skull and crossbonesBesides <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/makanda.html">Makanda</a>, the "eclipse crossroads" in Southern Illinois also includes Carbondale -- which has an interesting city logo:<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FAMteG1jRMRYeihpTLuvXapV42KKKl8NSgqW7IZoAmZsXM1RBAF9a47iSChGRQ4lDsunU8wB1pBo4ehEbW6oqx84ilE0wAImQ13gF-IVJciOVrz0IugOO4__sKXfhlRy5QtNMpVA0Qzk9ht2W2YnQZcsz_p4GYWN_qNE6xoh_8HdMd-ZYSyYyybq1RE/s673/carbondale.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="673" data-original-width="555" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FAMteG1jRMRYeihpTLuvXapV42KKKl8NSgqW7IZoAmZsXM1RBAF9a47iSChGRQ4lDsunU8wB1pBo4ehEbW6oqx84ilE0wAImQ13gF-IVJciOVrz0IugOO4__sKXfhlRy5QtNMpVA0Qzk9ht2W2YnQZcsz_p4GYWN_qNE6xoh_8HdMd-ZYSyYyybq1RE/s16000/carbondale.png" /></a></div><br />That design looks a little too perfect to be a coincidence, and sure enough, it's not. It <a href="https://www.carbondaletimes.com/news/20171222/carbondale-mayor-stands-behind-new-city-logo-/">was introduced</a> months after the 2017 eclipse and explicitly references the two eclipse paths:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">[Carbondale Mayor Mike] Henry said the logo is an abstract crossroad, which fits with Carbondale being the "eclipse crossroads of America." In the middle of the design, it looks like a keyhole, which Henry said suggests the door is always open in the city.</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>He may think it looks like a keyhole, but to me a round white shape superimposed on a white X looks like a skull and crossbones, a theme that came up in "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/human-skull-on-ground-turn-around.html">Human skull on the ground, turn around</a>":</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqTqaDnWIsj9GaoTy04s8xc2K7IQwvgXqBNvjg5y7_ER12ZqgcSJcVHthValKPqoIRmasghhT17MVoA6B_ywf8pEXTwX339l74aQSikZlHu77j4OgvB2IPcdXvPiN1dEpzXVP1ZXPNvSC2-xLfjauRzLD4-QR52s3iHAlPWaC9UWChKAfytJxmiqYxBFM/s540/live%20free.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqTqaDnWIsj9GaoTy04s8xc2K7IQwvgXqBNvjg5y7_ER12ZqgcSJcVHthValKPqoIRmasghhT17MVoA6B_ywf8pEXTwX339l74aQSikZlHu77j4OgvB2IPcdXvPiN1dEpzXVP1ZXPNvSC2-xLfjauRzLD4-QR52s3iHAlPWaC9UWChKAfytJxmiqYxBFM/s16000/live%20free.png" /></a></div><br /><div>In a comment on that post, I added, "The motorcyclist’s jacket shows a star (like the sun) being eclipsed by a dead white object (like the moon)," a link reinforced by "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-eclipsing-moon-as-skull.html">The eclipsing moon as a skull</a>."</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXeR-zV2yyTVcI7ALn9dBMYN9tPzUf_3WA5JgXVNLaxeyLnjny3Io_IhkisVaoKCep6ZlxphGYnj2j0uJtHCXa-BwST18wYVNqZZnDVf_f_mHuxdZBp-23WbeOwkfe3sgubpbGT4AfTIKp6xr7XkrzS6sHKSW1KNPFnX0Z_y0ZE5hBd21AH3AG9d8BAmA/s1082/skull%20eclipse.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1082" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXeR-zV2yyTVcI7ALn9dBMYN9tPzUf_3WA5JgXVNLaxeyLnjny3Io_IhkisVaoKCep6ZlxphGYnj2j0uJtHCXa-BwST18wYVNqZZnDVf_f_mHuxdZBp-23WbeOwkfe3sgubpbGT4AfTIKp6xr7XkrzS6sHKSW1KNPFnX0Z_y0ZE5hBd21AH3AG9d8BAmA/s16000/skull%20eclipse.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Notice the phrase "<b>judgement day</b>" there -- spelled the British way even though it was posted from America.<br /><br /></div><div>The article about the Carbondale logo said that a lot of people had been mocking the logo on social media -- some of them stooping so low, the mayor is shocked to report, as to "draw vulgar things on it on Facebook" -- so I wondered if any of these cowardly basement-dwelling idiot anonymous troll-demons had worked the Jolly Roger angle. An image search for <i>carbondale illinois skull and crossbones</i> turned up further confirmation that the moon is a skull:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG3Z-dD0UxmXDzX8gMFpJ7tpEkxe3438AhFBQ4upRMQnhc-CdKnGX8r0TP7K4KRHSHXlFDcIb7LsOjlH16N5adL1-R_YG6qSGERK5h933AR2sS0a5fNOCi0koM-pJnanzztFkk9Nj9n8inq7j9rWs8HgRnGZye4WfffnKUh3ASBRKDGFX2O4rSibliEZo/s540/skull%20moon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG3Z-dD0UxmXDzX8gMFpJ7tpEkxe3438AhFBQ4upRMQnhc-CdKnGX8r0TP7K4KRHSHXlFDcIb7LsOjlH16N5adL1-R_YG6qSGERK5h933AR2sS0a5fNOCi0koM-pJnanzztFkk9Nj9n8inq7j9rWs8HgRnGZye4WfffnKUh3ASBRKDGFX2O4rSibliEZo/s16000/skull%20moon.png" /></a></div><br /><div>That image came from the <a href="https://skulladay.blogspot.com/2013/">2013 archive page for a blog called Skull-A-Day</a>. The image itself is from a <a href="https://skulladay.blogspot.com/2013/12/ferreiras-super-skull-saturday.html">December 7 post</a> of skull art by Justin Ferreira; and on the same archive page is a <a href="https://skulladay.blogspot.com/2013/12/sunday-simulacra-version-731.html">December 29 post</a> in which a reader from Carbondale, Illinois, submitted a photo of milk in a sink forming a skull-like shape.</div><div><br /></div><div>The crescent moon skull design -- with the face on the concave surface of the crescent, and with dark orbits suggesting dark glasses -- reminded me of the old Moon Man meme.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR8hmuB0SddLKPyOcmul8RCWf1EQkhYJQoTiHdBeLzATitL7qb4OMEEX3Pq-_FTvZhT7gsdkc-EBpTBeDfEI-llaaxOdo5SMys4jZsWxyOUYwudCxTmYPTU_y9i5Aaodf7ciA7QJl2Q6stP-XUXzuGMF99aNkNjGDzd-BSkWrHcoqWxaDb77HELh281JE/s540/moon%20man.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR8hmuB0SddLKPyOcmul8RCWf1EQkhYJQoTiHdBeLzATitL7qb4OMEEX3Pq-_FTvZhT7gsdkc-EBpTBeDfEI-llaaxOdo5SMys4jZsWxyOUYwudCxTmYPTU_y9i5Aaodf7ciA7QJl2Q6stP-XUXzuGMF99aNkNjGDzd-BSkWrHcoqWxaDb77HELh281JE/s16000/moon%20man.png" /></a></div><br /><div>This led me to look up and reread A. T. L. Carver's proposal that, just as Pepe the Frog is the ancient Egyptian god Kek, <a href="https://pepethefrogfaith.wordpress.com/the-outrageously-triggering-moon-man-is-to-thoth-as-pepe-is-to-kek-theory/">Moon Man is Thoth</a>. The last bullet point got my attention:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>Okay, so both Moon Man and Thoth:</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Are associated with the moon</li><li>Have a crescent moon aspect to their heads</li><li>Deal with words and vocalizing</li><li>Are “<b>judgement day</b>” figures who lay down the law and establish an order</li></ul></div></blockquote>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-4360767345289143762024-03-18T01:21:00.003+08:002024-03-18T01:21:34.980+08:00The eclipsing moon as a skullThis theme came up in "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/human-skull-on-ground-turn-around.html">Human skull on the ground, turn around</a>." Today I ran across it again on /pol/:<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7vJK5pVZC3fLzUfTOaikQkJ4ik12dNORVHhD3iCvc5lgTfwHriIfZK9ow_PDAM0NE4QBRGlUF2BQ2VS0dTcXZEkdm2uUFPMIvLHKpILHS4PJJAjO1QVP2Jk2NeEdhdnUe4whBfYg_3S4ZD1t4kZhi9Qn21PrJ5lX3CM0g4zSFZsaw2_Lp_r2WE093BRk/s1082/skull%20eclipse.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1082" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7vJK5pVZC3fLzUfTOaikQkJ4ik12dNORVHhD3iCvc5lgTfwHriIfZK9ow_PDAM0NE4QBRGlUF2BQ2VS0dTcXZEkdm2uUFPMIvLHKpILHS4PJJAjO1QVP2Jk2NeEdhdnUe4whBfYg_3S4ZD1t4kZhi9Qn21PrJ5lX3CM0g4zSFZsaw2_Lp_r2WE093BRk/s16000/skull%20eclipse.png" /></a></div><br /><div>This was posted 22 days before the upcoming eclipse on April 8, 2024, so that's what it's referring to. My recent post "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/makanda.html">Makanda</a>" showed how the path of that eclipse crosses that of the August 21, 2017, eclipse at the town of Makanda, Illinois.</div><div><br /></div><div>Exactly halfway between these two eclipses -- 1,210.73 days after the 2017 eclipse and 1,210.73 days before the 2024 eclipse -- was the eclipse of December 14, 2020, the <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2023/10/newspaper-april-22-eclipse-and-peck.html">Galahad Eridanus eclipse</a>. (This is the hepton eclipse cycle of 3.5 draconic years. The 3.5-year period -- "a time and times and half a time," "forty and two months," etc. -- is important in the books of Daniel and Revelation.)</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-40507490130998686032024-03-17T17:01:00.001+08:002024-03-17T19:38:48.382+08:00Russian AI, the Pokémon dragon calendar, and a game you can play in your living room with your pet gorilla I dreamed that I visited Francis Berger’s blog and found that he had posted a long series of images tiled in a grid layout. These consisted of maybe 8 to 12 unique images, which occurred again and again in an unpredictable sequence like the digits of an irrational number. If the same image occurred two or three times in a row, this was represented with a larger rectangular version of the image, occupying the same space as two or three ordinary square tiles.<div><br /></div><div>The images were colored line drawings of fantastic creatures, mostly somewhat dragon-like. There was a red dragon which seemed to me to be the most important one, and a few of the other creatures were pale blue or cyan. I think one of them looked a bit like my Pokélogan, and there was another that was like a mermaid but less human-looking. Overall, the images suggested the Pokémon aesthetic.</div><div><br /></div><div>I understood that the grid of images was a calendar of the future, and that whenever there was a long red dragon series, that was a time period when something big could be expected to happen.</div><div><br /></div><div>I wondered where Frank had gotten the images themselves and figured that they were AI-generated. I refreshed his blog and found a new post gushing about this fantastic new AI service. It was Russian and accepted only Russian-language prompts, but all the cool kids were using it anyway because it was totally uncensored and had no coded-in diversity. Frank also seemed very impressed with its capabilities and wrote that it “may well be the first AI to become an EI.” I didn’t know what EI stood for, but I took it to mean that he thought it had the potential to become literally intelligent, like a human being. (This is of course totally inconsistent with the real Frank’s views on so-called AI.) I can’t remember the name of the Russian AI except that it began with the letter Pi (which is used in Russian as well as in Greek).</div><div><br /></div><div>As examples of the AI’s amazing capabilities, Frank had posted an image of the mermaid creature and a short video of soldiers on horseback with the word <i>Russia</i> in Russian behind them. I thought both of these were of mediocre quality and couldn’t see what he was so excited about.</div><div><br /></div><div>Later I saw a commercial for a game based on the group of creatures from Frank’s calendar post. There were some plastic objects about the size and shape of bottle caps, each with a different creature on it, and you could stick these on various surfaces around your living room. These would light up in an unpredictable sequence, and if you had the whacker (which looked like a hand towel), you had to whack the lit-up object before the light went out and then throw the whacker to another player. The commercial said you could even play it with your pets, and it showed a toddler and a silverback gorilla playing together, tearing around a living room and jumping and diving like baseball players to whack all the lit-up objects in time. Both child and ape seemed to be having a great time, but I couldn’t help wondering who would want something like that going on in their living room.</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-17914039243994670062024-03-15T14:41:00.000+08:002024-03-15T14:41:36.844+08:00Makanda<p>In <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/merry-pippin-mary-poppins-secret-names.html">my last post</a>, I quote the passage in Colin Wilson's <i>Shadowland</i> where Typhon tells Niall that he plans to introduce him as <i>Colonel</i> Niall despite the fact that he is not a colonel. A few paragraphs later, Niall's spider companion -- heretofore known only as "the captain," reveals his name for the first time:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>Typhon placed his mouth close to Niall's ear. "If you don't mind, I'll introduce you as Colonel Niall. Most of the men here have military rank."</p><p>"Of course. Whatever you think best."</p><p>"And I'll describe you simply as an envoy from the spider city. Telling them the truth would make everyone ask you how it came about. Or would you prefer that?"</p><p>"Of course not." Niall was only too glad to avoid attention.</p><p>Typhon asked the captain: "Do you have a name we could use?"</p><p>"Among my own people I was known as Makanda."</p><p>"Then let it be Captain Makanda."</p></blockquote><p>Today I clicked on <a href="https://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/37456732">an /x/ thread about the upcoming solar eclipse</a> and found this:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUoMuT7cNN46yS6lln28M-D1_hvxHwS4dpzaEbwLfd9kCgTv_ugy1btJX5naJF7_vBOQ9aY7g-fpYD9eTlelKxr4cpfleAX5w7uz2ptZ-5fUQXyHqJI0tOKq_Q2v_YhaqD-62XBBeRRQJHdCjezHMfyutWlGZLFK9c3d6R0NpN6Tl-0TXnEK3JlbWrbKI/s477/makanda.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUoMuT7cNN46yS6lln28M-D1_hvxHwS4dpzaEbwLfd9kCgTv_ugy1btJX5naJF7_vBOQ9aY7g-fpYD9eTlelKxr4cpfleAX5w7uz2ptZ-5fUQXyHqJI0tOKq_Q2v_YhaqD-62XBBeRRQJHdCjezHMfyutWlGZLFK9c3d6R0NpN6Tl-0TXnEK3JlbWrbKI/s16000/makanda.png" /></a></div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-3061164520925626572024-03-15T09:15:00.000+08:002024-03-15T09:15:44.593+08:00Merry, Pippin, Mary Poppins, secret names, golden straw, square heads, and fake colonels<p>A recent post by William Wright, "<a href="https://coatofskins.blogspot.com/2024/03/march-12-and-13-timelines-shelobs-lair.html">March 12 and 13 timelines: Shelob's Lair and a change in the wind</a>," mentions both the Tolkien characters Merry and Pippin and the P. L. Travers character Mary Poppins, but without noting the similarity of the names. I had a vague memory of having posted something about that similarity and wrongly thought that it must have been a comment on William's blog or a post on my own blog inspired by something he had written -- I mean, when else have I had occasion to write about those characters? A search of my blog turns up no mentions of Pippin, and the only <i>Mary Poppins</i> reference is in passing, as an example of a movie I had seen that had <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2022/05/richard-lattimore-dik-van-dyke-and.html">Dik [sic] Van Dyke</a> in it. It was on March 14 that I ran the search and found the Dik Van Dyke post. In the comments, Debbie mentions "an episode of the Twilight Zone released on March 14, 1963 called The Parallel."</p><p>I finally found what I was looking for, not in anything connected with William Wright, but in a heretofore unpublished sync note from 2015, a time when I was not blogging. Here is the note in question:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><b>Reluctance to reveal one’s name before the time is right (also: M-ry P-pp-n, straw is gold)</b></p><p>2015 Nov 18 (Wed) – I had been reading <i>The Two Towers</i> but took a break for a week or so to read <i>What the Bee Knows</i> by P. L. Travers. Today I finished the last four or five pages of Travers (I had almost finished last night) and immediately after finishing picked up Tolkien again.</p><p>This passage is from page 301 of Travers’s 303-page book:</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">This idea of the secrecy of the name, the taboo against making it known, goes back to man’s very early days, to the time, perhaps, when he had no name. During the war I spent two summers with the Navaho Indians and when they gave me an Indian name they warned me that it would be bad luck both for me and for the tribe if I ever disclosed it to anyone. And I never have. For one thing, I do not want to receive or give bad luck, and for another I have a strong atavistic feeling –– one, I think, that is strongly shared by unlettered people all over the world –– that <b>to disclose one’s name, or take another’s before the time is ripe –– well, it’s dangerous</b>. I tremble inwardly and withdraw when my Christian name is seized before I have given it, and I have the same hesitancy about using that of another person. An Indian –– or a gypsy –– would understand this very well. It is a very ancient taboo and I relate it –– though I don’t suggest that anyone else relate it –– to the earliest times when men built altars ‘To the Unknown God.’ If I were ever to build an altar, I would put that inscription above it.</p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>When I opened up Tolkien, my bookmark was between pages 606 and 607. The very first line:</p></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEbZmDx6vLJPMUADRn81kEkVCFEhziw0nf4e4f6AAEEtC4D29If5DPLJcjSwJTWYyXrII_JBKNQhdTPbyURtt2TVCYACCNgnSvuRKZuEfSmqUTJTbyGHGHqM0PsZnewY4VsZE4wI9ur061lD5B_QvSiML7bDvyEAjMWv6kIjNNPLvAGMjqPK1s38Nhp9M/s536/two%20towers%201.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="98" data-original-width="536" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEbZmDx6vLJPMUADRn81kEkVCFEhziw0nf4e4f6AAEEtC4D29If5DPLJcjSwJTWYyXrII_JBKNQhdTPbyURtt2TVCYACCNgnSvuRKZuEfSmqUTJTbyGHGHqM0PsZnewY4VsZE4wI9ur061lD5B_QvSiML7bDvyEAjMWv6kIjNNPLvAGMjqPK1s38Nhp9M/s16000/two%20towers%201.png" /></a></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>Here it is with some context from pp. 605-606:</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">‘Nobody else calls us hobbits; we call ourselves that,’ said Pippin.</p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">‘Hoom, hmm! Come now! Not so hasty! You call <i>yourselves </i>hobbits? But you should not go telling just anybody. You’ll be letting out your own right names if you’re not careful.’</p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">‘We aren’t careful about that,’ said Merry. ‘As a matter of fact I’m a Brandybuck, Meriadoc Brandybuck, though most people call me just Merry.’</p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">‘And I’m a Took, Peregrin Took, but I’m generally called Pippin, or even Pip.’</p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">‘Hm, but you <i>are</i> hasty folk, I see,’ said Treebeard. ‘I am honoured by your confidence; but you should not be too free all at once. There are Ents and Ents, you know; or there are Ents and things that look like Ents but ain’t, as you might say. I’ll call you Merry and Pippin, if you please – nice names. For I am not going to tell you <i>my</i> name, not yet at any rate.’ A queer half-knowing, half-humorous look came with a green flicker into his eyes. ‘For one thing it would take a long while: my name is growing all the time, and I’ve lived a very long, long time; so <i>my</i> name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.</p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>As a second, related sync, the next page of <i>What the Bee Knows</i> (i.e., page 302, the penultimate page) refers to the book <i>Mary Poppins in the Park</i> and the character <b>Mary Poppins</b> (who, of course, is P. L. Travers’s creation). The Tolkien passage features the phonetically similar “<b>Merry and Pippin</b>.”</p><p>As a <i>third </i>ancillary coincidence, the paragraph immediately before the one quoted at the beginning of this entry (beginning on page 300) tells the story of Rumpelstiltskin, beginning thus:</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">‘Rumpelstiltzkin’ was another of my favourites, for its meaning lay very close to me. Everyone knows the story of how the miller’s daughter, in order to become a queen, promises the little old man her first child if he will spin her <b>straw</b> into <b>gold</b>. Of course he does it. It is no problem. To him <b>they are one and the same</b>.</p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>The very first words of page 622 of The <i>Two Towers</i> are “When <b>straw is gold</b>” –– from the song with the Ent and the Entwife.</p></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH9q64OkM5UZRZYFbzUHncep1DJa0W7e_Hp7ghn4TImm6cQ6WPELvp9ZFi4oE57RpVeks-GizjqfFoWHtD4P_Qv3Gk1mdShxRR4Jm16xNswU5nkAcMHsWFg3cOvCixaohIAHzSBwSNGTEILXWt1laW3tjEjUyhQvLZA0JjonRmI4VWZMwILrkVqqeJk9o/s538/two%20towers%202.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="105" data-original-width="538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH9q64OkM5UZRZYFbzUHncep1DJa0W7e_Hp7ghn4TImm6cQ6WPELvp9ZFi4oE57RpVeks-GizjqfFoWHtD4P_Qv3Gk1mdShxRR4Jm16xNswU5nkAcMHsWFg3cOvCixaohIAHzSBwSNGTEILXWt1laW3tjEjUyhQvLZA0JjonRmI4VWZMwILrkVqqeJk9o/s16000/two%20towers%202.png" /></a></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>The fact that two of the syncs feature the very first words of one of Tolkien’s pages is itself a noteworthy coincidence, I suppose.</p></blockquote><div>I looked up this old sync note yesterday, March 14, 2024. It is part of a sync log file consisting of a series of such notes in reverse chronological order, like a blog. Immediately after the note quoted above (and therefore written immediately before it) was this brief one:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><b>Square heads and hairy bodies</b></div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>2015 Nov 16 (Mon) – Skype. Amber asked me about an alleged trend in Taiwan where people cut a dog’s fur so that its head will be a perfect square.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>2015 Nov 17 (Tue) – Read in P. L. Travers’s <i>What the Bee Knows</i>: “the wild women of ancient Russia with square heads and hairy bodies”</div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>This got my attention because I am currently reading <i>Shadowland</i> by Colin Wilson, in which there are several mentions of human beings who have been genetically engineered to have square heads. The first such reference is on p. 342:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>Niall . . . blinked with astonishment, suspecting that his eyes were deceiving him. The man seemed to have a square head. Niall pointed to him.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Is there something wrong with him?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"No. That is one of the karvasid's experiments. He thought that a man with a different-shaped head could be made more intelligent, but he proved to be wrong. They are very stupid."</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4x7cCX59N9EVdD1Kz06Cly0EuLhBtiufbgHYGUQoiX-_6yBjeSu4g3ClGL8WMhgR-jD473u3F_IiZJpOCM8_HwcTvoMI12JQqwRYsNGKqOTaJChYCDJNYv_HoZMOOjfaO6J9_6891ljIV22D4o7XaoWhPU7Wk9SAuqtRURgp4e1-nMGuZz3p3SYXq74Y/s473/top%20of%20cool.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="181" data-original-width="473" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4x7cCX59N9EVdD1Kz06Cly0EuLhBtiufbgHYGUQoiX-_6yBjeSu4g3ClGL8WMhgR-jD473u3F_IiZJpOCM8_HwcTvoMI12JQqwRYsNGKqOTaJChYCDJNYv_HoZMOOjfaO6J9_6891ljIV22D4o7XaoWhPU7Wk9SAuqtRURgp4e1-nMGuZz3p3SYXq74Y/s16000/top%20of%20cool.png" /></a></div><br /><div>Recall that before finding these old sync notes, I had searched this blog for <i>Mary Poppins</i> and found an old post where the March 14, 1963 <i>Twilight Zone</i> episode "The Parallel" was mentioned. Since finding that on March 14 was a bit of a sync, I read the summary of that episode on Wikipedia. An astronaut returns to Earth and slowly realizes that he has slipped into a subtly different parallel universe. One of the first clues is that everyone addresses him as Colonel even though in the universe he knows, he never held that rank. Later that same day, March 14, I read this in <i>Shadowland</i>:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">Typhon placed his mouth close to Niall's ear. "If you don't mind, I'll introduce you as Colonel Niall. Most of the men here have military rank."</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>People with square heads, and a non-colonel being addressed as a colonel. Two pretty specific and unusual themes!</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-25578213267803651702024-03-13T11:02:00.000+08:002024-03-13T11:02:15.581+08:00AI art still has a long way to goI was trying to generate some line-drawing illustrations for Aesop's fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. Stable Diffusion had other ideas:<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRroS-VQnd_X4OlJQKyBqRIULZquKIIRraJtOFzeKTBXFbhnJgu_OhjQMO1Oer78Zjq3PZZ8FztwUELiVePbKNrB6ZsxF0Q62gwU6hQhbqYtuIdEmqcD0TlsF07HddSj0VLAfi-5Ntyue5MB-0Y6GU2lFqXUMUrLAa0MPRgrHH-aF5UeZqjhPMBvGqsYM/s1024/tortoise%20and%20hare.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRroS-VQnd_X4OlJQKyBqRIULZquKIIRraJtOFzeKTBXFbhnJgu_OhjQMO1Oer78Zjq3PZZ8FztwUELiVePbKNrB6ZsxF0Q62gwU6hQhbqYtuIdEmqcD0TlsF07HddSj0VLAfi-5Ntyue5MB-0Y6GU2lFqXUMUrLAa0MPRgrHH-aF5UeZqjhPMBvGqsYM/w400-h400/tortoise%20and%20hare.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Actually, that looks like a much more interesting story.</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-81512636920297340642024-03-12T16:58:00.000+08:002024-03-12T16:58:31.915+08:00Human skull on the ground, turn aroundThe upcoming total eclipse of the sun has been in the sync-stream of late, which is probably what put Bonnie Tyler's 1983 song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in my head.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipiH2TBWHf75qysCCZwtU8y9M_8kZY9NIKP7IbGy_yjuRV9m3WHnYzBZm90rtwJKMwEmhvJI7vAC_8CrX93GdA_HHb_vOvryAAC4qnIRcs3rdSWwsEHNA94qOhiLKLusUN3IAzNYUmHeF7QvZ1H_a2_1pWQkWvKlluSwoHPk_nAkRigM7boSlR6cQmlyI/s540/tyler.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipiH2TBWHf75qysCCZwtU8y9M_8kZY9NIKP7IbGy_yjuRV9m3WHnYzBZm90rtwJKMwEmhvJI7vAC_8CrX93GdA_HHb_vOvryAAC4qnIRcs3rdSWwsEHNA94qOhiLKLusUN3IAzNYUmHeF7QvZ1H_a2_1pWQkWvKlluSwoHPk_nAkRigM7boSlR6cQmlyI/s16000/tyler.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lcOxhH8N3Bo" width="320" youtube-src-id="lcOxhH8N3Bo"></iframe></div><br /><div>That in turn made me think of the audition scene from the 2010 movie <i>Diary of a Wimpy Kid</i>, where the sing the intro to the Tyler song, with the repeated line "Turn around":</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bAI6N5Uo7SQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="bAI6N5Uo7SQ"></iframe></div><br /><div>That led to the Tyler song being replaced in my head by "Turn Around" (1992) by They Might Be Giants, which is about turning around and seeing a human skull:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>Turn around, turn around</div><div>There's a thing there that can be found</div><div>Turn around, turn around</div><div>It's a human skull on the ground</div><div>Human skull on the ground</div><div>Turn around</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lp8AVKopwzU" width="320" youtube-src-id="Lp8AVKopwzU"></iframe></div><br /><div>This train of thought occurred while I was on the road, and while I was thinking about the human skull on the ground, I saw this on the back of the jacket of the motorcyclist in front of me:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu6ltFPVAXtM9To4mWfsiIlFI3II3TMI-4BkdsynkfuMzGmeiU0TIgLOWpC2AeS9A1VEPfPATOK6uwyOjTMEkRG6h339br0K75ElApFEKN8nvgZDamF4TZuEQtDf6Qjrsa9wXNpS60V2lwfZlSTxKbzzpXCKLr0fTWK6oyXqZBhdcC7m4M4wt4OgcIfWk/s540/live%20free.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu6ltFPVAXtM9To4mWfsiIlFI3II3TMI-4BkdsynkfuMzGmeiU0TIgLOWpC2AeS9A1VEPfPATOK6uwyOjTMEkRG6h339br0K75ElApFEKN8nvgZDamF4TZuEQtDf6Qjrsa9wXNpS60V2lwfZlSTxKbzzpXCKLr0fTWK6oyXqZBhdcC7m4M4wt4OgcIfWk/s16000/live%20free.png" /></a></div><br /><div>This reinforced the skull theme, and I found myself thinking about the scene in <i>Hamlet</i> where he addresses the skull and trying to remember the lines: "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times . . . ." And that was about as much as I could remember; I've only read<i> Hamlet</i> a couple of times.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hamlet was borne on the back of Yorick, who is now a skull -- and now a skull was borne on the back of a motorcyclist.</div><div><br /></div><div>After posting "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/booby-trap.html">Booby trap</a>," which ends with a meme of a cat saying, "It's a booby trap!" I had a vague memory of having seen a meme years ago involving a cat and the Admiral Ackbar "It's a trap!" line. I couldn't remember any details, but I ran an image search for <i>admiral ackbar cat</i> just to see what would turn up. I didn't find what I was looking for, but among the search results was this old <i>New Yorker</i> cartoon:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjK4zsuQbsVZ94QCeWC6ZfoAmRC_iyOoERpEVvjpP9B9AdA3e6alDBC3RMdurgKTJoFX-we6PaZpEX8Y114PaEizUmWDu-TvSne9SB0jPyvWeA3XQIEPzpJTXg3A1wX9v_i5az5S1oNB0k-ZosJrrUAw0XUskwqNGeMUKM8Ahjze9OGjmaH0gOLtl1m0U/s545/ackbar%20cruz.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="537" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjK4zsuQbsVZ94QCeWC6ZfoAmRC_iyOoERpEVvjpP9B9AdA3e6alDBC3RMdurgKTJoFX-we6PaZpEX8Y114PaEizUmWDu-TvSne9SB0jPyvWeA3XQIEPzpJTXg3A1wX9v_i5az5S1oNB0k-ZosJrrUAw0XUskwqNGeMUKM8Ahjze9OGjmaH0gOLtl1m0U/s16000/ackbar%20cruz.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I liked the drawing style, so I forgot about Admiral Ackbar and cats and just searched for <i>benjamin schwartz cartoon</i>. One of the results immediately got my attention:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRHEHOPpPgh-S-OF6GL8_T37rwphyphenhyphenRMShVIPmAhEwSQUOGtp2rsFoAR_AZ00cpEJaH_Cd0-IjR1WBvPmikx-2gY-BJlVY2r7MuP3baoX2O1mHMXExB6pKzBiUvRtxafd4qkcae-zQxZ47jmIGcxc9JX2Pud-GONqde4KHuTwq78dafHWGv_D_QKT4fink/s467/hamelt%20schwartz.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="363" data-original-width="467" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRHEHOPpPgh-S-OF6GL8_T37rwphyphenhyphenRMShVIPmAhEwSQUOGtp2rsFoAR_AZ00cpEJaH_Cd0-IjR1WBvPmikx-2gY-BJlVY2r7MuP3baoX2O1mHMXExB6pKzBiUvRtxafd4qkcae-zQxZ47jmIGcxc9JX2Pud-GONqde4KHuTwq78dafHWGv_D_QKT4fink/s16000/hamelt%20schwartz.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>That's the iconic <i>Hamlet</i> scene I had just been thinking of, with the twist that the prince is <i>turning around</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>On a whim, I searched for <i>skull solar eclipse</i>, and the first result was this T-shirt, about the very eclipse that started this whole train of thought:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxLAAxyRvHzY46tWrdQtPzhOpwRQjQYQlcMOQ18LYQTu5ICXllKBTm4kRCDZSOQgN4HUF29u-0A0XbroAYMnS257y3lKaN95ueIiSplaANy7NutXqGDhGpJIP1vnecIrTHbB3aqkjkwaaeK_PjQwz9cOhaGggKzYHdOopuZH6CJrzaagDKQcX8hst19M/s660/skull%20eclipse.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="532" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxLAAxyRvHzY46tWrdQtPzhOpwRQjQYQlcMOQ18LYQTu5ICXllKBTm4kRCDZSOQgN4HUF29u-0A0XbroAYMnS257y3lKaN95ueIiSplaANy7NutXqGDhGpJIP1vnecIrTHbB3aqkjkwaaeK_PjQwz9cOhaGggKzYHdOopuZH6CJrzaagDKQcX8hst19M/s16000/skull%20eclipse.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The date of the eclipse is written as 04.08. In <i>Hamlet</i>, the next scene after Act 4, Scene 7, is the scene with the skull.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Searching for <i>bonnie tyler skull</i> also turned up "Total Eclipse of the Heart":</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0V-4TK_5GpUJMqt1Z-W50P5_ORvbyclrDz3D5ODvMSKdHoCyzqeaO0f6DZbnapQtqOzxaWJXCn1Kg2BesloKRJU1H3LHv9PXI0PWDsJPJzDBUtYUX9lqF7CSVhOb4_zzKb7eDC9mLf0kowrsif_RPewo9ewkiEDh9ijpjA_Symk2tUbGy-eZY5QTQf7w/s540/fall%20apart.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0V-4TK_5GpUJMqt1Z-W50P5_ORvbyclrDz3D5ODvMSKdHoCyzqeaO0f6DZbnapQtqOzxaWJXCn1Kg2BesloKRJU1H3LHv9PXI0PWDsJPJzDBUtYUX9lqF7CSVhOb4_zzKb7eDC9mLf0kowrsif_RPewo9ewkiEDh9ijpjA_Symk2tUbGy-eZY5QTQf7w/s16000/fall%20apart.png" /></a></div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-54788936050056333432024-03-12T16:01:00.002+08:002024-03-12T16:01:12.349+08:00Booby trapThis morning I taught an adult English class. Their reading assignment had been an article about the Terracotta Army, and I had to explain the meaning of the term <i>booby trap</i>:<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj11uH65oBUNoOuHaCSkCF-Mo5l5QAL9QnSK4j5Ehb4v9Zs0AjNo9-Pf3STT3fTxI5fYEor-tQVgt6KZs7OIU89Aa1fy_RxpIAkpvyLuHxXVOoci74VVN69IbGEk9GencR3jAi_0LxGjvVw8T3gPWmqT-NuqWyycSm8UXDJWh22jiAUWLFEa6YpOGz2tLw/s536/qin%20shi%20huang.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="536" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj11uH65oBUNoOuHaCSkCF-Mo5l5QAL9QnSK4j5Ehb4v9Zs0AjNo9-Pf3STT3fTxI5fYEor-tQVgt6KZs7OIU89Aa1fy_RxpIAkpvyLuHxXVOoci74VVN69IbGEk9GencR3jAi_0LxGjvVw8T3gPWmqT-NuqWyycSm8UXDJWh22jiAUWLFEa6YpOGz2tLw/s16000/qin%20shi%20huang.png" /></a></div><br /><div>Three hours later, I ran across this meme online:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1YjQKPFruPs9dcNF2veV7SgZO95GEjp6YN9i_mUegoEdxBy8ppr_RvadKPjaESTSA7dhNRSdQN-wdIhFMX5wbKKwsJAVxg38WDwM4poKKoMsLDHkeLtuzvgoIYJrGR7BsfiAugRB_DgCFa6zGkgAtSot3jcyCl-UTV4YpzG6ehj62zHCpXDQ-5-9zUQ/s534/booby%20trap.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="534" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1YjQKPFruPs9dcNF2veV7SgZO95GEjp6YN9i_mUegoEdxBy8ppr_RvadKPjaESTSA7dhNRSdQN-wdIhFMX5wbKKwsJAVxg38WDwM4poKKoMsLDHkeLtuzvgoIYJrGR7BsfiAugRB_DgCFa6zGkgAtSot3jcyCl-UTV4YpzG6ehj62zHCpXDQ-5-9zUQ/s16000/booby%20trap.png" /></a></div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-17853204345627429232024-03-12T12:02:00.001+08:002024-03-12T12:02:20.577+08:00Eating the bookI dreamed I was somewhere away from home -- in a hotel room, I think, with some family members -- and I was reading a book. This was a very thick blue or green paperback, and on the cover was nothing but an oval-shaped black-and-white photograph of James Joyce. I don't think the book was actually by Joyce, though, although it was certainly thick enough to be <i>Ulysses</i>. Something about the typeface and punctuation gave a strong 19th-century impression, and when I tried to picture the author, I got an image of a professorial-looking man from that era, with a receding hairline and a heavy beard. I though it might be either William James or Éliphas Lévi. I don't have a clear idea of the content of the book or even of the language, but I'm sure it was a modern European language (perhaps English, French, or Italian), and that many of the paragraphs began with em-dashes. Reading it gave me the exhilarating feeling of seeing puzzle pieces fit together.<div><br /></div><div>I decided to eat the last page of the book. It came apart in my mouth like pastry and had a light honey-like flavor. For a moment I reproached myself for this stupid mistake -- How could I finish reading the book now that I'd eaten the last page? -- but then I remembered that I had another copy of the same book at home, so it was no big deal.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">⁂</div><div><br /></div><div>The idea of eating a book and having it taste like honey is biblical, and this dream may have been influenced by my fairly recent (February 22) reading of Ezekiel 2 and 3:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>"But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee."</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein; and he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>Moreover he said unto me, "Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel."</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>And he said unto me, "Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness."</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>And he said unto me, "Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel; not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand" (Ezek. 2:8-3:6).</div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>The language of the hand being "sent" also parallels what Daniel told Belshazzar about <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/mene-mene-tekel-upharsin-prototype-for.html">the writing on the wall</a>:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">And thou . . . hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; . . . and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written (Dan. 5:22-24).</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>John of Patmos -- whose Revelation is, among other things, a synthesis of the various Old Testament prophets -- reports an experience similar to Ezekiel's:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: and he had in his hand a little book open . . . .</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, "Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth."</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, "Give me the little book."</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>And he said unto me, "Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey."</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>And he said unto me, "Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings" (Rev. 10:1-2, 8-11).</div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Unlike Ezekiel, who is specifically told that he does <i>not</i> have to speak "to many people of a strange speech," John is instructed to "prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues."</div><div><br /></div><div>I think the honey-like flavor of all these books is probably an allusion to manna -- "the taste of it was like wafers made with honey" (Ex. 16:31) -- which symbolized the word of God:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live (Deut. 8:3).</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Recent syncs have implicitly brought up the idea of eating a book, as the golden plates of the Book of Mormon have been connected with the breakfast cereals Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Hidden Treasures. (see "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-chameleon-or-salamander-shifting.html">A chameleon (or salamander) shifting trees -- this is cereal, guys!</a>") Just as Ezekiel and John must eat a book before prophesying, <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2023/11/pleased-to-meet-you-hope-you-guess-my.html">Patrick tells William Alizio</a> that he must finish eating all the Hidden Treasures before he can deliver his message (the message being "We have come to take you away").</div><div><br /></div><div>Just yesterday I was at the supermarket to buy cocoa powder, and I saw that they had two kinds of Kellogg's Corn Flakes for sale: "Classic" and "Honey Flavor."</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-45755936390393467382024-03-10T11:53:00.001+08:002024-03-10T11:53:34.083+08:00Pi in the sky: Where the moon doth rise with a dragon’s faceWilliam Wright’s latest, “<a href="https://coatofskins.blogspot.com/2024/03/pi-and-kirtland-temple.html">Pi and the Kirtland Temple</a>,” discusses the fact that the upcoming total solar eclipse will pass over the Kirtland Temple at 3:14 p.m., suggesting the number Pi. (Interestingly, his post comes on the one-year anniversary of <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2023/03/weirdly-specific-sync-meerkats-and.html">a post of mine about <i>The Life of Pi</i></a>.) William focuses not only on the number but on the shape of the letter Pi itself and connects this with “writing on the wall” of the Kirtland Temple.<div><br /></div><div>All this made me think of the classic scene in <i>This Is Spinal Tap</i> (one of the greatest films of all time) where a diminutive Pi-shaped prop is lowered onto the stage during the band’s performance of “Stonehenge.”</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zg5Ovdu6bOE" width="320" youtube-src-id="zg5Ovdu6bOE"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div>Like the Monkees before them, Spinal Tap would end up becoming a “real” band and performing off-screen. Their full version of “Stonehenge” includes a line that isn’t in the movie: “Stonehenge! ‘Tis a magic place / Where the moon doth rise with a dragon’s face.”</div><div><br /></div><div>The ancient Chinese believed that a solar eclipse was caused by a dragon eating the sun, but in fact it is the moon that is making the sun disappear. When does the moon rise with a dragon’s face? At an eclipse of the sun.</div><div><br /></div><div>I recently posted about the writing on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, and William transposes this idea to the Kirtland Temple. Interestingly, the lost pages of the Book of Mormon apparently included a story in which supernatural writing appeared on the wall not of a pagan king’s palace but of the doomed Temple of Nephi. (Don Bradley does an excellent job of reconstructing this in his must-read <i>The Lost 116 Pages</i>.)</div><div><br /></div><div>The word <i>mene</i>, derived from the verb “to count,” is repeated twice in the biblical writing on the wall: “count, count.” On Pi Day 2022, I posted about <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-sempiternal-count-recites-all.html">Count von Count reciting all the digits of Pi</a>.</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-82376896809553132922024-03-09T23:14:00.000+08:002024-03-09T23:14:59.108+08:00"Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" -- the prototype for William Wright style "words"?I've been reading the Book of Daniel, and the story in Chapter 5, where Daniel interprets the writing on the wall, reminded me of William Wright's "words" and the methods he uses for interpreting them, as well as my own recent stab at such an interpretation in "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/baggu-ash-ni-fire-dwell-gog-ifluaren.html">Baggu ash-ni fire-dwell a gog ifluaren bansil este repose</a>." Here is Daniel's analysis (vv. 25-28):<div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>And this is the writing that was written: <i>Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin</i>. This is the interpretation of the thing:</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div><i>Mene</i>: God hath numbered [<i>menah</i>] thy kingdom, and finished it.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div><i>Tekel</i>: Thou art weighed [<i>tekiletah</i>] in the balances, and art found wanting.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div><i>Peres</i>: Thy kingdom is divided [<i>perisath</i>], and given to the Medes and Persians [<i>upharas</i>].</div></div></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><div>My understanding is that the writing on the wall, unlike William Wright's multilingual hodgepodges, consists entirely of normal Aramaic words, which can be translated literally as "mina, mina, shekel, and half-pieces." A mina is either 50 or 60 shekels, and commentators are divided on whether the "half-pieces" are half-minas or half-shekels, but basically these are all units of weight which, like our English <i>pound</i>, were also used as units of currency. Note that <i>pharsin</i> is the plural of <i>peres</i>, and that <i>u-</i> is a prefix meaning "and."</div><div><br /></div><div>It doesn't make any sense literally, though. The first three words might mean two minas and a shekel (i.e., either 101 or 121 shekels), but the final word is perplexing. "A shekel and a half" makes sense, but "a shekel and <i>halves</i>"? I don't know anything about Aramaic, but I would be willing to bet that the word <i>upharsin</i> -- "and halves" -- is attested nowhere but in this story. "One and a half" is an understandable quantity; "one and halves" is not.</div><div><br /></div><div>Daniel therefore turned, as William so often does, to etymology. <i>Mene</i>, <i>tekel</i>, and <i>peres</i> derive from verbs meaning respectively "to count," "to weigh," and "to divide," and it is on these underlying roots that he bases his interpretation. He also uses a non-etymological association -- something like a pun -- to give the final word a double meaning. In addition to its etymological meaning of "to divide," <i>upharsin</i> -- specifically <i>that</i> form of the word, the one with the bizarre meaning "and halves" -- happens to sound an awful lot like "and Persians." These two unrelated readings of <i>upharas</i> are synthesized to produce the final meaning: that the kingdom will be <i>divided</i> between the Medes <i>and Persians</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Isn't that rather similar to the sorts of analyses to which William subjects his "words"? The only thing Daniel failed to do was to try reading the inscription as Elvish rather than Aramaic. Well, better late than never.</div><div><br /></div><div>The closest Elvish word to <i>mene</i> is <i>menel</i>, "the heavens." <i>Tekel</i> suggests the root <i>tek-</i>, "to write," and <i>tecil</i>, "pen." <i>U-</i> is a prefix in Elvish as well as in Aramaic, and <i>u-par-sin</i> can be read as "bad/difficult to learn in this way." Doesn't that read pretty well as meta-commentary on the whole writing-on-the-wall incident? Daniel specifically said that the hand that wrote the words had been "sent from" the "Lord of heaven" (vv. 23-24). So our Elvish reading goes like this: When God sends a hand from heaven to write your doom on your palace wall, that's learning things the hard way!</div><div><br /></div><div>As for <i>peres</i>, the other word that appears in Daniel's analysis, it's an Elvish root meaning "affect, trouble, disturb" -- a pretty apt description or Belshazzar's reaction when he saw the hand:</div><div><br /></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div style="text-align: left;">Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another (v. 6).</div></div></blockquote>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-50883361451309191012024-03-09T13:25:00.001+08:002024-03-09T13:25:12.311+08:00What's a soft-boiled egg? I'm cereal.I spotted this on /pol/ today, in a thread about what people used to eat a century ago:<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghQZeDAkUEgbsOhHZBw5wJcNqbgImFrl7yxSjcRXbl-Zf-K81oe_kGM_AEeK07JS5tq-Q1OhHDiLWIe9CH-JXdGOrieIgQe15SoKEKUCAaSwQrSRAdkVC7vo_oJRKsvvGwvZchXEbgLYBTREtWM_MW2xoj0fBa5z2oz4tNgH_OrUqrJjKEhIVH4VCm35A/s434/serial%20egg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="331" data-original-width="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghQZeDAkUEgbsOhHZBw5wJcNqbgImFrl7yxSjcRXbl-Zf-K81oe_kGM_AEeK07JS5tq-Q1OhHDiLWIe9CH-JXdGOrieIgQe15SoKEKUCAaSwQrSRAdkVC7vo_oJRKsvvGwvZchXEbgLYBTREtWM_MW2xoj0fBa5z2oz4tNgH_OrUqrJjKEhIVH4VCm35A/s16000/serial%20egg.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>So that's another reference to the ManBearPig "I'm cereal" line (which could also be heard as "serial"), and it's responding to a question about eggs. The cereal we're most interested in around here is <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/hidden-treasures-super-cereal.html">Hidden Treasures</a> -- which have already been connected with eggs in my November 20 post "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-wonderful-flight-to-mushroom-planet.html">The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet</a>," where I quoted one of Bilbo's riddles from <i>The Hobbit</i>:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>A box without hinges, key, or lid,</div></div><div><div>Yet golden treasure inside is hid.</div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Eggses! But what's soft boiled, Precious?</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-91576627691817274272024-03-08T19:48:00.000+08:002024-03-08T19:48:03.332+08:00You must remember, or I'll have you executed<p>Yesterday, William Wright posted "Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit: What did the Dormouse say?" and quoted the following exchange from <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>"Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said --" the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.</p><p>"After that," continued the Hatter, "I cut some more bread-and-butter --"</p><p>"But what did the Dormouse say?" one of the jury asked.</p><p>"That I can't remember," said the Hatter.</p><p>"You must remember," remarked the King, "or I'll have you executed."</p></blockquote><div>The word <i>dormouse</i> does not actually derive from <i>mouse</i> but from the French <i>dormeuse</i>, "sleeper," a reference to the fact that it hibernates, which is presumably why the Dormouse in <i>Alice</i> is forever falling asleep. The King is demanding that the Hatter remember what the Sleeper said or face execution.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yesterday I finished reading the Book of Ezekiel, and today I read the first four chapters of the next book, that of Daniel. In Chapter 2, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, forgets it, and then demands that his magicians both remember the dream for him and interpret it:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>And the king said unto them, "I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream."</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, "O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation."</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, "The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill."</div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>The dream, like whatever the Dormouse said, was produced by a Sleeper and has been forgotten. The King demands that someone produce this forgotten content or be executed.</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-39389352341290910222024-03-08T16:33:00.000+08:002024-03-08T16:33:22.387+08:00Hofmann wasn't yesterday, and Joseph saw a pillar of fire<p>Yesterday I posted "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/hofmanns-haiku-broo-jerroo.html">Hofmann's haiku: The Broo Jerroo</a>," recounting a dream about Mark Hofmann, the notorious forger of Mormon historical documents. The dream was 20 years ago, and the Hofmann affair was another 20 years before that, but I posted about it yesterday -- <i>yesterday</i> being the key word here.</p><p>What had reminded me of the Hofmann dream was my post of the day before yesterday, "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/baggu-ash-ni-fire-dwell-gog-ifluaren.html">Baggu ash-ni fire-dwell a gog ifluaren bansil este repose</a>." The post's title consists of nonsense words that can be interpreted in more than one way, and the same was true of "The Broo Jerroo," the haiku Hofmann wrote in the dream. In the "Baggu ash-ni" post, I discuss Joseph Smith's account of his First Vision, specifically as a text which Mormon missionaries memorize and share with potential converts, and I mention that "in some early accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision, the pillar is described as being fire rather than light." In fact, I think there's like one obscure manuscript where <i>fire</i> was crossed out and replaced with <i>light</i>. The official version has <i>light</i>, and that's the version of the story known by Mormons and shared by missionaries. My emphasis on the pillar-of-fire version was motivated by my attempt to decipher the nonsense words -- the same thing that would inspire me to post about Hofmann the next day.</p><p>This morning, I wanted to listen to something while driving, so I played part of one of the episodes of the "LDS Discussions" series with John Dehlin and the pseudonymous "Mike." (The whole series is highly recommended, by the way, as some of the smartest and most-even handed "anti-Mormon" content out there -- though that's perhaps damning it with faint praise!)</p><p>What I listened to was the first 15 minutes or so of an episode called "Problems with Personal Revelation":</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ewSScvKyj5s" width="320" youtube-src-id="ewSScvKyj5s"></iframe></div><div><br /></div>Most of the series deals with Joseph Smith and the origins of Mormonism, but the episode before this one (which I haven't listened to) dealt with the subject of "Failed Prophecies After Joseph Smith." At the beginning of this episode, they talk briefly about how popular that last episode was, and Mike says this about it:<br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">We're looking at, really for one of the first times in the series, . . . the modern Church, and I think . . . it's something that impacts us today, when we talk about Russell M. Nelson or Dallin H. Oaks or the <b>Mark Hofmann stuff, which I know didn't happen yesterday</b>, but it's modern times.</p></blockquote><p>But my own post about Mark Hofman stuff <i>did</i> happen yesterday.</p><p>They then get into the main topic, personal revelation, and one of the guests on the program, who goes by Nemo, explains how missionaries use the First Vision story to demonstrate that divine revelation is available to anyone -- and how they later have to walk that back a bit:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>I'd say that's the reason [Mormon missionaries] start out with the First Vision and the idea that God came and spoke to a poor 14-year-old farm boy, Joseph Smith. . . . God will speak to anyone because he'll speak to this dirt-poor farm boy of just 14 years old, so he would speak to you as well.</p><p>But then the rest of the missionary discussions are about managing expectations as to why <b>he won't appear to you in a fiery pillar above your head, you know, above the brightness of the sun</b> -- because that's what he did for Joseph but, no, we then have to explain that it's through the whisperings of the Spirit, etc. etc.</p></blockquote><p>"Above the brightness of the sun" is a direct quote from the canonized account of the First Vision, as presented by missionaries. The section they quote begins with "I saw a pillar of light" -- but here Nemo refers instead to "a <i>fiery</i> pillar," which is something Mormon missionaries never say when telling the First Vision story.</p><p>I thought this pillar-of-fire variant of the First Vision, together with the Hofmann-wasn't-yesterday comment, was enough of a coincidence to be worth noting.</p>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-31630905415668222922024-03-08T09:30:00.000+08:002024-03-08T09:30:48.662+08:00Hidden Treasures, the super cereal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvtu3ZrF7Gy4Eu7NuGTZ_wCG8IQdA5TDZkExzGZDdDPocTKYQFItdrZHxWBmy4IEVnithk9D5BDN4CT0biy-KspvCWITXRtHUMa_9x47I0a5CJfUscKuSZCKqihmsWrTIye8AeG9UhZp4CdTWAEeGyT1QNVMikLADTivzDpCB0cG-KdNn4wE63O1jEYAY/s656/hidden%20treasures.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="504" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvtu3ZrF7Gy4Eu7NuGTZ_wCG8IQdA5TDZkExzGZDdDPocTKYQFItdrZHxWBmy4IEVnithk9D5BDN4CT0biy-KspvCWITXRtHUMa_9x47I0a5CJfUscKuSZCKqihmsWrTIye8AeG9UhZp4CdTWAEeGyT1QNVMikLADTivzDpCB0cG-KdNn4wE63O1jEYAY/w307-h400/hidden%20treasures.png" width="307" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Hidden Treasures was a breakfast cereal introduced by General Mills in 1993 and discontinued in 1995. During its short run, though, it was the favorite foodstuff of my friend Jon Flynn, which led to its being immortalized in literature as the preferred breakfast of William Alizio. (See "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2023/11/pleased-to-meet-you-hope-you-guess-my.html">Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name</a>.") When Alizio is visited by the blue-robed aliens Tim and Patrick, the abduction has to wait until Patrick has finished eating all the Hidden Treasures in the house -- five boxes, without milk.<div><br /></div><div>In yesterday's post "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-chameleon-or-salamander-shifting.html">A chameleon (or salamander) shifting trees -- this is cereal, guys!</a>" I mention Al Gore's "I'm super cereal" line from the 2006 <i>South Park</i> episode "ManBearPig." I connect this with <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/fighting-in-ash-mud-and-putting-out.html">a recent dream about Kellogg's Corn Flakes</a> and also mention that the last time cereal came up on the blog it was Hidden Treasures. Here's the clip where Gore introduces the very "cereal" threat of ManBearPig:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BGoEP-IqoDg" width="320" youtube-src-id="BGoEP-IqoDg"></iframe></div><br /><div>Gore ends his speech by shouting "Excelsior!" -- which is the title of a <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44631/excelsior-56d223cb4e6fa">Longfellow poem</a>, often quoted by Bertie Wooster, about "A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, / A banner with the strange device, / Excelsior!" Outside of references to that poem, it's a pretty unusual word, so much so that Longfellow's second stanza calls it an "unknown tongue." <i>Excelsior</i> is first and foremost a "strange device," though; Longfellow twice refers to the "banner with the strange device, Excelsior!"</div><div><br /></div><div>In 2020, when the Church Formerly Known as Mormon announced that they were retiring the <i>Ensign</i>, which had been their official periodical since before I was born, and replacing it with another magazine called the <i>Liahona</i>, I quipped in an e-mail that they were "replacing the <i>Banner</i> with the <i>Strange Device</i>."</div><div><br /></div><div>In a comment, William Wright draws my attention to his March 6 post "<a href="https://coatofskins.blogspot.com/2024/03/treasure-planet.html">Treasure Planet</a>," about the Disney movie of that name, an interplanetary version of <i>Treasure Island</i>. He highlights a "strange device" that appears in the film:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div style="text-align: left;">The 'treasure map' takes the form of the gold ball that Jim comes into possession of. . . . Dr. Doppler refer[s] to the ball as an "odd little sphere". When I heard that, it reminded me of Nephi's description of the Liahona-Anor Stone as a "round ball of curious workmanship". If you look up "curious" on Etymonline, you will see "solicitous, anxious, inquisitive; odd, strange". </div></div></blockquote><div><div><br /></div></div><div>William ends his post with the music video for "I'm Still Here" by John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls, which serves as Jim Hawkins's theme in <i>Treasure Planet</i>. The video begins with a boy dreaming about flying pirate ships and other <i>Treasure Planet</i> imagery and then shows him waking up and eating some prominently labeled Corn Flakes:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikKxbEXID1yye3solOophmKfkqrbU7OXEgPWPOwtxTx50sdSkc9rGCfWuZPpeWnZ2ike04aWNpxcgCHUa0IDrkIbyPItytL3RC50hNPyQYOX38ayEhsHf4RUnUb1n1s1R8Cr7BkpxCpkh-yycM93_nnUxwpse5GXbki0wqeCsCwBYvyiKJ4_e7Y8LGuFc/s539/corn%20flakes.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="539" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikKxbEXID1yye3solOophmKfkqrbU7OXEgPWPOwtxTx50sdSkc9rGCfWuZPpeWnZ2ike04aWNpxcgCHUa0IDrkIbyPItytL3RC50hNPyQYOX38ayEhsHf4RUnUb1n1s1R8Cr7BkpxCpkh-yycM93_nnUxwpse5GXbki0wqeCsCwBYvyiKJ4_e7Y8LGuFc/s16000/corn%20flakes.png" /></a></div><br /><div>My original reference to "ManBearPig" was in "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/02/swords-of-mars-two-mouthed-chameleon.html">Swords of Mars, two-mouthed chameleon-cat-men, and kings' stories engraved on stones</a>," the only connection being that a "chameleon-cat-man" was another three-way hybrid creature. That post included a picture of the cover of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel that bears a certain thematic similarity to <i>Treasure Planet</i>:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIrwnFGO2uWXQd7xcnKNBXAnel4M1VrS0XJp9HVrFGzfLTWspZUcScysL15MSqF1F6G9aTPz6ijDMZss8sIspEHWa4iJ0OKAx9sYbegegYvAApUmFlNtiKv8s4JeLpyA0YVUZc-673jMufzqdD4BZmH_qasMyRiTw6WRst8-GRXsfPYma3H_LI8A6Zuq8/s539/space%20ships.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="539" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIrwnFGO2uWXQd7xcnKNBXAnel4M1VrS0XJp9HVrFGzfLTWspZUcScysL15MSqF1F6G9aTPz6ijDMZss8sIspEHWa4iJ0OKAx9sYbegegYvAApUmFlNtiKv8s4JeLpyA0YVUZc-673jMufzqdD4BZmH_qasMyRiTw6WRst8-GRXsfPYma3H_LI8A6Zuq8/s16000/space%20ships.png" /></a></div><br /><div>On the <i>Swords of Mars</i> cover, the flying ships' banners are prominent. On the <i>Treasure Planet</i> poster, the focus is more on the strange device.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've never actually watched the whole "ManBearPig" episode. Today I was surprised to discover that one of the major plot points involves Cartman literally <i>eating a hidden treasure</i>. (Content warning: It's <i>South Park</i>.)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vYkCYu3-oKc" width="320" youtube-src-id="vYkCYu3-oKc"></iframe></div><br /><div>By the way, that mopey Goo Goo Dolls number? I'm sorry, but it's just not punk rock enough to be in a <i>Treasure Island</i> adaptation. Seriously, what is something like that even doing in a pirate movie? They might as well have had David Gates sing "I Found the Treasure Underneath a Tree" or something. Disney used to know how to make a real <i>Treasure Island</i> soundtrack:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5p137EbW-cI" width="320" youtube-src-id="5p137EbW-cI"></iframe></div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-89079098704597412062024-03-07T16:54:00.003+08:002024-03-07T17:20:10.049+08:00Lepidus, Lapras, Pokélogan, Thomas B. Marsh, and Peter<p>In my February 6 post "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/02/pokelogan.html">Pokélogan</a>," I discuss my plesiosaur Pokémon keychain by that name and my disappointment when I discovered that the creature's "real" name was the vastly inferior <i>Lapras</i>. William Wright went on to connect <a href="https://coatofskins.blogspot.com/2024/02/swampy-key-holders-thomas-b-marsh-and.html">Pokélogan with Thomas B. Marsh</a> and <a href="https://coatofskins.blogspot.com/2024/02/thomas-b-marsh-st-peter-and-keys-of.html">Thomas B. Marsh with St. Peter</a>.</p><p>The real name, <i>Lapras</i>, reminded me of something, though, and the other day I finally figured out what. Back in 2018, I read the Arden Shakespeare edition of <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>, with helpful but occasionally mildly zany notes by R. H. Case. The most memorable of these was a comment on a dialogue in which Agrippa says, "'Tis a noble Lepidus," and Enobarbus replies, "A very fine one." About this use of <i>Lepidus</i>, the name of one of the triumvirs, as if it were a common noun, Case writes:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">This comment was possibly evoked by the sound of the word <i>Lepidus</i>, which, to me, at least, is rather suggestive of some kind of sea creature of the inerter type. But perhaps this is seeing too much.</p></blockquote><p>I have to say I'm a huge fan of this note. It's almost <i>Pale Fire</i> tier. If more footnotes were like this one, I would read more footnotes.</p><p>So no less an authority than R. H. Case assures us that the name <i>Lepidus</i> is "suggestive of some kind of sea creature" -- like, say, a sky-blue Loch Ness monster with a shell and horns? In American pronunciation, the <i>d</i> in <i>Lepidus</i> is flapped, making it sound like a Spanish or Japanese <i>r</i>; and the <i>u</i> is reduced to a schwa, which would be considered an <i>a</i> sound in Japanese. That gives us <i>Lepiras</i>, which is pretty close to <i>Lapras</i>. I personally didn't think <i>Lapras</i> was such a great name for a sea creature, but I'm prepared to defer to Professor Case on the matter.</p><p><i>Lepidus</i> means "pleasant, charming," but it can also be a variant of <i>Lapidus</i>, "made of stone, stony." A sea creature made of stone would certainly be "of the inerter type." The name <i>Peter</i>, of course, also means "stone." St. Peter was also a "triumvir" of sorts in the Synoptic Gospels and Mormon tradition, together with James and John.</p>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-75702120601064124462024-03-07T15:25:00.001+08:002024-03-07T15:25:24.406+08:00A chameleon (or salamander) shifting trees -- this is cereal, guys!<p>I read a bit in Karen Russell's novel <i>Swamplandia!</i> today. The narrator, Ava Bigtree (a White girl whose family has adopted an Indian surname and dresses as Indians as part of their alligator-wrestling act) is traveling in the Everglades with an eccentric known only as the Bird Man. When they unexpectedly encounter a park ranger, the Bird Man seems to transform:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">[T]he Bird Man put on a big grin that made his face unrecognizable to me. It rejiggered his features so that they were at their most ordinary; even his eyes seemed pale and normal. Who had I been traveling with this great while? How could you change so completely when another person showed up, like a chameleon shifting trees? I was impressed (pp. 252-53).</p></blockquote><p>Any reference to chameleons catches my eye these days, and this was a somewhat odd one -- not "changing colors" but "shifting trees." I guess the idea is that moving to different surroundings -- shifting trees -- might prompt a chameleon to change to a different color to maintain its camouflage. But this would only make sense if <i>the two trees were different colors</i>. This theme of two trees with contrasting colors has come up recently. In "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/fighting-in-ash-mud-and-putting-out.html">Fighting in ash-mud and putting out the blazing white tree</a>," I include a picture of John Opsopaus's Star card and quote him on the significance of the two cypress trees on the card:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">[T]he dark cypress (with its serpent) is the Tree of Knowledge and the white cypress (with its bird) is the Tree of Life.</p></blockquote><p><i>The white cypress with its bird is the Tree of Life.</i> The name <i>Ava</i> has various origins, but as a modern name it is generally held to be a variant of <i>Eva</i>, meaning "life." So Ava Bigtree is White, her name suggests the Tree of Life, and she is accompanied by the Bird Man and (though it is not mentioned in the excerpt quoted above) by her pet, a young alligator which was born bright red. On Opsopaus's card, the serpent in the dark cypress is red, and the bird has the head of a lion. In recent syncs, the chameleon has been red and has been associated with the lion-headed serpent and with lion-headed creatures with wings. (See "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/01/an-old-pre-dator-chameleons-and-le.html">An old pre-dator, chameleons, and le Demiurge</a>" and "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/01/red-chameleons-manticores-and-vampires.html">Red chameleons, manticores, and vampires</a>.") In another recent post, "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/02/chameleons-everywhere.html">Chameleons everywhere</a>," we see a bird and a chameleon together in a tree, on the cover of a book called <i>Lemurs, Chameleons, and Golden Plates</i>.</p><p>In "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/01/leaves-of-gold-unnumbered.html">Leaves of gold unnumbered</a>," the golden plates were associated with leaves of gold in two poems by Tolkien. One of these two poems was quoted again in "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/baggu-ash-ni-fire-dwell-gog-ifluaren.html">Baggu ash-ni fire-dwell a gog ifluaren bansil este repose</a>," in connection with another pair of differently-colored trees: the Two Trees (gold and silver/white) of Valinor and their scions in Gondolin. I put particular emphasis on the line in the poem which says the golden leaves "are falling in the stream, the river flows away."</p><p>In <i>Swamplandia!</i>, a few pages after the "chameleon shifting trees" reference, Ava Bigtree uses very similar imagery in describing how her memories of her deceased mother seem to be slipping away:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Even the few facts I did have about her last weeks tended to float away from me like shining leaves on water the more I tried to get a picture together (p. 256).</p></blockquote><p>Opsopaus has a white tree and a <i>dark</i> one; Tolkien has a white tree and a <i>golden</i> one. Can this discrepancy be bridged? In my "Fighting in ash-mud" dream, I found a small fire smoldering the hollow of a tree. I stoked this fire, with the result that <i>another</i> tree became engulfed in white flames but was not consumed. The first burning tree could be considered both "dark" (because the fire was a small one, mostly just smoldering, with few flames) and "golden" (because such flames as it did have were the ordinary yellow-orange color of a wood fire). When the fire "shifted trees," it -- like a chameleon -- also changed color, becoming white.</p><p>So now the chameleon has been symbolically identified with fire -- an idea already latent in the existing "red chameleon" theme -- and specifically with a <i>white</i> fire. From this idea of a fiery lizard, it is no great jump to the idea of a <i>salamander</i>, and specifically a <i>white</i> salamander, though one also associated with "leaves of gold." I just posted, for reasons unrelated to any of these themes, "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/hofmanns-haiku-broo-jerroo.html">Hofmann's haiku: The Broo Jerroo</a>." This is a haiku that seems at first to be about chameleonic gelatin ("The blue Jell-O / It is yellow"), and its author is the master forger Mark Hofmann, whose most notorious forgery is a letter in which Joseph Smith's leaves of gold are guarded not by the familiar Angel Moroni but by a folk-magicky trickster spirit in the form of a white salamander:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">the next morning the spirit transfigured himself from a white salamander in the bottom of the hole & struck me 3 times & held the treasure [i.e., the golden plates] & would not let me have it . . . the spirit says I tricked you again</p></blockquote><p>In "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/02/swords-of-mars-two-mouthed-chameleon.html">Swords of Mars, two-mouthed chameleon-cat-men, and kings' stories engraved on stones</a>," I write parenthetically "Half man, half chameleon, and half cat -- I'm cereal," linking to the classic <i>South Park</i> episode in which Al Gore, in a parody of his global warming shtick, tries to raise awareness of the deadly threat that is ManBearPig -- "half man, half bear, and half pig" -- and keeps repeating "I'm cereal" instead of "I'm serious."</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF9wEVxcnSPNzP4MiWYapcTaSYrwi1cO1wLivTb_czyeDbMnqxlcLttO6NP2YuDeJqBhSyAMI2qXbxp4-5jCn53JTQ_pLM1WrKXq8c11EWOVIIrRZZgZ2jv-S2ZJX_ksu7_ZK-eTA3-MgEhXHp4I4vTPpSWCBSt1zEO6dKK6I3XtebVR007E77cjRbOqU/s300/super%20cereal.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF9wEVxcnSPNzP4MiWYapcTaSYrwi1cO1wLivTb_czyeDbMnqxlcLttO6NP2YuDeJqBhSyAMI2qXbxp4-5jCn53JTQ_pLM1WrKXq8c11EWOVIIrRZZgZ2jv-S2ZJX_ksu7_ZK-eTA3-MgEhXHp4I4vTPpSWCBSt1zEO6dKK6I3XtebVR007E77cjRbOqU/s16000/super%20cereal.png" /></a></div><p></p><p>In my "Fighting in ash-mud" dream, literal cereal came up. I needed a blanket to put out the tree's white fire, and I thought I could get one by finding a suitable word on the side of a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes. Then, hours after the dream, a conspiracy channel I subscribe to on YouTube, which had never ventured into the field of breakfast cereals before, posted a video about what's written on the side of a box of Kellogg's <i>Frosted</i> Flakes. Flat yellow Corn Flakes are synchronistically adjacent to leaves or plates of gold. Frosted Flakes differ from Corn Flakes in that they are frosted with white sugar, so we have the gold/white duality again. The mascots of these two cereals -- a bird and a large feline -- suggest some of the animals that have come up in connection with the chameleon. The other cereal that has come up on this blog recently (see "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2023/11/pleased-to-meet-you-hope-you-guess-my.html">Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name</a>") is Hidden Treasures. This is also a golden plates-adjacent name, and in my quote from Hofmann's salamander letter, the plates are referred to as "the treasure."</p>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-13276054696463573702024-03-07T10:31:00.000+08:002024-03-07T10:31:11.157+08:00Hofmann’s haiku: The Broo Jerroo<p><a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/baggu-ash-ni-fire-dwell-gog-ifluaren.html">Yesterday's "tongues" post</a>, in which it is assumed that an unusual word is intended to allude to at least two different words simultaneously, reminded me of a dream I had back in 2002 or 2003.</p><p>I dreamed that I was at some sort of social event, and that among those present was Mark Hofmann (who is known for having forged several Mormon historical documents and then murdered three people to cover his tracks, and who in real life is serving a life sentence in Gunnison). Mark stood up and announced that he had composed a haiku and would like to share it with everyone. He took out a small note card (about the size of a business card) and read, with what was clearly <i>deliberately</i> garbled pronunciation, something that sounded like this:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The broo jerroo<br />Ih is yerroo<br />The broo jerroo</p></blockquote><p>I understood this as:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The blue Jell-O<br />It is yellow<br />The blue Jell-O</p></blockquote><p>I repeated back the haiku as I had understood it and said, "Mark, that doesn't make any sense. And anyway, it's not a haiku because it doesn't have 17 syllables."</p><p>Mark gave a smug smile, clearly gratified at my playing such a perfect straight-man role in the joke he had set up, and triumphantly turned his note card around so everyone could see what was written on it. It read:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The brother of Jared<br />He is a hero<br />The brother of Jared</p></blockquote><p>Utah Mormons are notoriously fond of Jell-O, so the Jell-O reading of the haiku is a stereotypical reference to the shallowest aspects of Mormon Corridor culture. I took Hofmann's trick as a sarcastic commentary on the current state of Mormondom, on how what should have been something deep and epic -- the faith of the brother of Jared -- had devolved into something having more to do with various colors of flavored gelatin. From Deseret to desert to dessert.</p>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-12811837452570570712024-03-06T22:25:00.003+08:002024-03-06T23:49:41.151+08:00Baggu ash-ni fire-dwell a gog ifluaren bansil este repose<div>As a holy-roller acquaintance of my father's used to say, "That's tongues, ya know!" This is from William Wright, though, whose term for this sort of thing is not <i>tongues</i> but <i>words</i>. In terms of how easy it is to interpret, this stuff lies somewhere between James Joyce and straight-up glossolalia, but having cut my teeth on <i>Finnegans Wake</i> at a young age, I'm willing to give it a shot.</div><div><br /></div><div>These words were received by William on November 7, 2019, long before we "met" online, and he just shared them with me now in response to my post "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/03/fighting-in-ash-mud-and-putting-out.html">Fighting in ash-mud and putting out the blazing white tree</a>" (which you should read first before continuing, if you haven't already). That dream featured a character known only as <i>G</i>, and William's first suggestion for what it might mean was <i>Gog</i> -- a somewhat odd idea for him to come up with, as he's not really a Bible guy. It turns out that this reading was inspired by a dream of his own:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div style="text-align: left;">I was leaning toward Gog, or it was on my mind, because you showed up in my dream this morning and used the phrase "a gog", which could be a name (Gog or one of the 'Gogs', or I thought of Magog at the time, but I had forgotten in the Bible it is Magog and not Agog) or I guess "agog" as an adverb.</div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Then he remembered that "a gog" had also occurred in his 2019 words and posted them, noting that like my dream his words also featured <i>fire</i> and the idea of a white tree. (<i>Bansil</i> is the name of a white or silver tree in Gondolin, described in Tolkien's <i>Book of Lost Tales</i>.)</div><div><br /></div><div>What convinced me that these words are definitely relevant, though, is the hyphenated word <i>ash-ni</i>. My post had included the hyphenated word <i>ash-mud</i> in the title, and -- though William would not have known it, as he doesn't speak Chinese -- the Chinese word for "mud" is 泥, Romanized as <i>ní</i>. I don't know what <i>ash-ni</i> might have meant to William in 2019, but it's definitely an extremely specific sync with my dream.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, in terms of the dream, <i>ash-ni</i> is the ash-mud that G and Diego were fighting in, <i>gog</i> is presumably what <i>G</i> stands for, and <i>bansil</i> is the blazing white cypress tree. Let's see what we can make of the rest of the words:</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>baggu:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This would be the standard Romanization for バッグ, Japanese for "bag," which is of course a borrowing from English. Why would the Japanese version be used instead of the English <i>bag</i>? Well, <i>baggu</i> is closely analogous to <i>poké</i> (as in <i>Pokémon</i> and <i><a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/02/pokelogan.html">Pokélogan</a></i>), which is a Japanese borrowing from the English word <i>pocket</i> (a kind of bag; I had <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/02/pokelogan-is-elvish-because-of-course.html">connected <i>poké</i> with Elvish <i>poco</i></a>, "bag"). William Wright has proposed that <a href="https://coatofskins.blogspot.com/2024/02/swampy-key-holders-thomas-b-marsh-and.html">Pokélogan represents Thomas B. Marsh</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>ash-ni:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This is clearly the ash-mud from the dream.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>fire-dwell:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Fire plays a major role in the dream, but what this specific wording makes me think of is my September 21 post "<a href="https://notesonthebom.blogspot.com/2023/09/lehi-nephi-and-pillar-of-fire-that.html">Lehi, Nephi, and the pillar of fire that "dwelt upon a rock": A case study of hard-to-define biblical parallels</a>." I point out how odd it is to speak of a pillar of fire "dwelling" anywhere, and I refer to the fire dwelling on the rock as "Lehi's burning-bush equivalent." In my dream post, I write that the blazing white tree "suggests both the Burning Bush of Moses and the glowing white Tree of Life in the dreams of Lehi, Nephi, and Joseph Smith Sr.," and I also include a photo of "burning bush" in the Australian sense of the latter word.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>a gog:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The sync fairies seem to be insisting that this is what <i>G</i> stands for. <i>Gog</i> is proper name, so the use of <i>a</i> is anomalous. Various interpretations suggest themselves. It could mean not <i>the</i> Gog but just <i>a</i> Gog, or it could be meant to suggest the word <i>agog</i> -- which could be (a) the English adverb, (b) the Greek for "leader," or (c) a word halfway between <i>Gog</i> and <i>Magog</i>. I don't really get what Gog means, even at the symbolic level, so I'm not really sure where to go with this.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>ifluaren:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This is a stumper. As is, it doesn't seem to mean anything in any language, so we have to interpret it the <i>Finnegans Wake</i> way. When you have apparent non-words -- such as in a phrase like "the grimm gests of Jacko and Esaup" -- it's because two or more words or concepts are being alluded to simultaneously. (In those seven words, Joyce is nodding to, at minimum, the Brothers Grimm, Robin Hood, black humor, Jack the stock fairy-tale hero, Jacob and Esau, and Aesop's fables.)</div><div><br /></div><div>If we adjust the spelling a bit, it suggests <i>influerem</i> ("I would flow in") <i>influerent</i> ("they would flow in") or some similar Latin construction. Since it's been mangled, it can't be pinned down grammatically, but it's some sort of in-flowing in the subjunctive mood.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only thing it suggests to me in English is <i>if Lauren</i>. Since <i>if</i> would be used with a subjunctive verb, this could be combined with the Latin into something like "if Lauren would flow in" -- whatever that means! A reference to the St. Lawrence River or something?</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps more promisingly, <i>ifluaren</i> is just one letter off from being an anagram of <i>Laurelin. </i>(A perfect anagram would be <i>Laurefin</i>, suggesting a single strand of golden hair.) Laurelin, the Golden Tree, is one of Tolkien's Two Trees of Valinor, the other being <i>Telperion</i>, the White Tree. These two trees were destroyed by Melkor, but as <i>The Book of Lost Tales</i> tells it, surviving shoots from the Two Trees were preserved in Gondolin, where they grew into golden Glingol and silver-white Bansil. Since the next word after <i>ifluaren</i> is <i>bansil</i>, this seems highly relevant.</div><div><br /></div><div>But the Golden Tree <i>flowing</i>? Check out Galadriel's Song of Eldamar, recently quoted here in "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/01/leaves-of-gold-unnumbered.html">Leaves of gold unnumbered</a>":</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:</div></div><div><div>Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>[. . .]</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;</div></div><div><div>The leaves are falling in the stream, the river flows away.</div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>The leaves of the Golden Tree are flowing out, flowing away in the river. <i>If only</i> -- a subjunctive expression -- if only they would come back! If only they were flowing <i>in</i> rather than out!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>bansil:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>As noted above, Bansil is a White Tree, just as Laurelin is the Golden Tree. A potentially important difference is that Laurelin is the <i>original</i> Golden Tree, while Bansil is a scion of the original White Tree, Telperion.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>este repose:</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Este</i> (feminine <i>esta</i>) is Spanish for "this"; <i>repose</i> is also Spanish, an inflection of <i>reposar</i>, "to rest." I've put two words together because together they make me think of the Spanish translation of Joseph Smith's account of his First Vision. When I was an English-speaking Mormon missionary, my Spanish-speaking associates would recite this at every district meeting, and I heard it so many times that even now, a quarter of a century later, I can still rattle it off from memory:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Vi una columna de luz, más brillante que el sol, directamente arriba de mi cabeza; <b>y esta luz</b> gradualmente descendió hasta descansar sobre mí. . . . Al <b>reposar sobre mí la luz</b>, vi en el aire arriba de mí a dos Personajes, cuyo fulgor y gloria no admiten descripción. Uno de ellos me habló, llamándome por mi nombre, y dijo, señalando al otro: </i>Este es mi Hijo Amado: ¡Escúchalo!</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>The ellipsis is not mine; the text memorized by the missionaries omitted a bit of the original.</div><div><br /></div><div>In English, Smith says, "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me." In Spanish, to avoid ambiguity — to avoid making it sound like Smith's head gradually descended — it says "<i>and this </i>(<i>este</i>)<i> light</i> descended gradually until it fell upon me. . . . When the light rested (<i>reposar</i>) upon me, I saw in the air above me two Personages," and so on.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>But instead of <i>esta </i>(feminine) and <i>reposar</i> (infinitive), William's words have <i>este</i> (masculine) and <i>repose</i> (present subjunctive). The gender discrepancy is easily dealt with. In Lehi's vision mentioned above, and also in some early accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision, the pillar is described as being fire rather than light -- not <i>esta luz</i> but <i>este fuego</i>. The subjunctive mood, of course, fits right in with our Latin reading of <i>ifluaren</i>.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>So that's my first pass at decoding these words, at the lexical level. The next step will be to try to see how (or, less optimistically, if) they fit together as a single coherent utterance.</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-75045358859729913102024-03-05T16:38:00.003+08:002024-03-06T00:13:31.907+08:00Fighting in ash-mud and putting out the blazing white tree<p>I dreamed that I went back to my family's old home in Ohio (which in real life no longer exists, the land having been sold to Hell Hollow Wilderness Area when my parents moved to Virginia), realizing that I'd completely forgotten to visit it regularly to feed the pets.</p><p>When I arrived, I found that the house was now occupied by a married couple whom I could not see or here but of whose presence I was aware and with whom I could communicate telepathically. I thought of them as "G and his wife," with no particular idea of what the G stood for, and I didn't find their invisibility to be anything strange. I certainly didn't think of them as "ghosts" or anything. I took it for granted that they were fully physical flesh-and-blood human beings but that they existed on a wavelength that made them inaccessible to my ordinary senses.</p><p>G's wife led me down into the basement (which was enormous) and to what I guess could be described as a walk-in fireplace. It was a very large circular room with a high domed ceiling, full of smoldering logs and coals, and I understood that its purpose was to heat the house. She asked me to use a poker to break all the half-burnt logs into smaller pieces, and I said (telepathically), "To <i>stoke</i> the fire. I understand." I thought the purpose was to expose more unburnt wood to the oxygen and get the fire burning stronger.</p><p>In this assumption I was wrong. As I "stoked" the fire, the logs crumbled to coals, which quickly became ashes, and then the ashes became a thick gray mud. This, it turns out, was exactly what G wanted. He and another person, who I think was called Diego (at any rate it was definitely a Spanish name), appeared and announced that this was now their dojo. "Diego and I like to spend all day every day <i>fighting</i> here!" G announced. (All these people were still invisible and inaudible; I could "see" and "hear" them only in a metaphorical way.) G and Diego were each connected to the center of the domed ceiling with something like the silk dragline used by a falling spider. They would swing around on these lines, meet in the mud, and tussle.</p><p>At the end of a fight, what looked like some sort of corporate logo appeared in the air near the top of the ceiling. My first impression was that it was the Chupa Chups logo, but then I saw that it was actually G's wife's name. (I apprehended this fact directly, without being aware of what her name actually was.) Then the logo rotated clockwise several degrees, which had the effect of making the <i>n</i> at the end of the name look like a <i>b</i>, transforming the name to <i>Cheb</i>. (This implies that her name was <i>Chen</i>, but I had no sense of this fact during the dream and was somewhat surprised to discover it upon waking.) The logo then disappeared.</p><p>I recognized <i>Cheb</i> as the name of one of the ancient Spider Lords in Colin Wilson's novels, and I thought that this whole thing -- the fight on draglines and the transforming name -- was a reference to a theory G entertained that his wife was actually the reincarnation of a very important spider.</p><p>I was less concerned about the meaning of the logo than about the fact of its appearance. A logo appearing in midair at the end of a performance was something that happened on TV, not in real life. "G," I said, "how did that happen? Did you make it happen, or are we in a movie?"</p><p>"Well," he said, "let's say it's a <i>preview</i> for a movie."</p><p>Later, I was out walking in the hemlock-beech woods that surrounded the house. I found a beech tree that had a little hollow at a fork in its trunk, and there was a small fire smoldering in the hollow. I thought I'd better "stoke" that fire, too, and I did this in the literal sense of adding fuel. The risk of starting a forest fire did cross my mind, but I dismissed it, figuring that G and his wife knew what they were doing keeping a fire burning there.</p><p>A few minutes later, I turned back and saw that the tree next to the one I had "stoked" was now on fire -- sort of. The flames were white in color, they didn't seem to be consuming the tree, and only that one tree was affected. The flaming tree gave the impression of a Persian cypress, which would be quite out of place in those woods, but I think it was the flames that made it appear to have that shape.</p><p>Some other invisible people were nearby, and I alerted them to the flaming tree. They expressed disappointment that no one had thought to bring a large blanket with which to beat out the flames. After a few failed attempts to beat out the flames with my jacket -- most of the blaze was too high for me to reach -- I ran back to the house to get a blanket.</p><p>In order to get a blanket, I would have to find a suitable <i>word</i> with which to conjure one up. In the house I found a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes, with the classic green rooster logo, and began hurriedly scanning the side of the box for a suitable word. I found a possible candidate in the word <i>croied</i>, which I mentally pronounced to rhyme with <i>void</i>. "That might work," I thought. "Haven't I heard of <i>croied sheets</i> before, or <i>croied bedding</i>?" Wanting to be sure, I took down a dictionary (shelved together with the corn flakes for some reason) and looked up <i>croi</i>. I found nothing, but then I remembered that the base word is spelled <i>croix</i>, with the silent <i>x</i> being removed when a suffix is added. (<i>Croix</i> is French for "cross," but I was still mentally pronouncing it as "kroy," not "krwah") Looking up <i>croix</i>, I found a long list of definitions, including one that said "the absolute penis," but couldn't find anything bedding-related.</p><p>"Wait," I thought, "did that say 'the absolute penis'? That's pretty weird." I looked back through the list of definitions to find it again, but I found that all the definitions were now written in Chinese, and that I had lost the ability to read Chinese. I was still trying to decipher these Chinese definitions -- all I could figure out was that one of the characters was likely pronounced <i>huang</i>, though I wasn't sure which of the many characters with that pronunciation it might be -- I woke up.</p><p style="text-align: center;">⁂</p><p>I've learned from William Wright that the point-of-view character in a dream doesn't always represent the dreamer himself, but that we sometimes dream from the point of view of another. In this case, I think it highly likely that I was represented in this dream by G, not by the character I experienced as being "me." I was actually known as <i>G</i> when I worked at Burger King as a teenager. For some reason, many of the employees there were known by celebrity surnames associated with their given names -- a concept roughly comparable to Cockney rhyming slang, I guess. For example, there was a guy named Jimmy who was always referred to as <i>Page</i>, and I, the guy named Bill, was called <i>Gates</i>, which was later shortened to <i>G</i>. This became sufficiently "official" that my name tag had nothing but the letter <i>G</i> on it. It is suggested in the dream that G's wife is called <i>Chen</i>, which is my own wife's maiden name. My wife also used to use the English name <i>Charlotte</i> -- inspired by, you guessed it, the arachnid heroine of <i>Charlotte's Web</i>.</p><p>(Unfortunately, the whole time I was known as Gates, no one once said "Groovy greets" to me.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwbKDT_nhvddZBTnAkRIA3SJ2-nYo5J-1Vedpoy890a7HTYU_LEGMHqwaffE7VH_ptUioR9lN8vOxXa8PWCl9tMxfcFEqlzRcUE4GexZYuZYkO7YUvyAetDuNptooX40uEFpHmM_i2tacJksRklJkIjtwnGOt_06Iz4J-Dh6MaV6_IDflcIqtVE636U9E/s765/kellys.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwbKDT_nhvddZBTnAkRIA3SJ2-nYo5J-1Vedpoy890a7HTYU_LEGMHqwaffE7VH_ptUioR9lN8vOxXa8PWCl9tMxfcFEqlzRcUE4GexZYuZYkO7YUvyAetDuNptooX40uEFpHmM_i2tacJksRklJkIjtwnGOt_06Iz4J-Dh6MaV6_IDflcIqtVE636U9E/s16000/kellys.png" /></a></div><p>So who is Diego? And who is the point-of-view character? No idea so far.</p><p>The tree, burning with white flames but not consumed, suggests both the Burning Bush of Moses and the glowing white Tree of Life in the dreams of Lehi, Nephi, and Joseph Smith Sr. Given these connotations, the fact that the point-of-view wants to put the tree out by beating it with a blanket suggests that he's not a good guy.</p><p>A white <i>cypress</i> in particular reminded me of something, and after a while I figured out what it was: A tree of that description appears on John Opsopaus's (hand-drawn by a non-artist; cut him some slack) version of the Star card of the Tarot:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZlqpcoS0cKaUy7Seu4Fowq5bszzbo0DFc2WWyhE8FS_2GAIpXMkhF5CkOD613W8yoZOVpMACYcV8pf2LdTO96Q669dj-IKCJmcA5fC0S8eagbNoLecLhb_y6qdXXDRrhNVb6_1rE0M56csL1L2xjfEoziEmvhb4sJXxJkEpHbylC-Gxt4qrAoYcFfwVE/s632/aster.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZlqpcoS0cKaUy7Seu4Fowq5bszzbo0DFc2WWyhE8FS_2GAIpXMkhF5CkOD613W8yoZOVpMACYcV8pf2LdTO96Q669dj-IKCJmcA5fC0S8eagbNoLecLhb_y6qdXXDRrhNVb6_1rE0M56csL1L2xjfEoziEmvhb4sJXxJkEpHbylC-Gxt4qrAoYcFfwVE/s16000/aster.png" /></a></div><p>Checking <a href="http://opsopaus.com/OM/BA/PT/M16.html">his essay on that card</a>, I find that it's yet another Tree of Life reference:</p><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">[T]he dark cypress (with its serpent) is the Tree of Knowledge and the white cypress (with its bird) is the Tree of Life.</p></blockquote><p>The bird, incidentally, is the lion-headed Anzû, which has appeared on this blog <a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2022/10/parrhesia-nephele-and-sumerian-sphinx.html">once before</a>.</p><p>The morning after the dream, I taught an adult English class. One of the students asked me out of the blue, "What's the difference between a cedar and a cypress?" I provided the Chinese translations and just said they were two different kinds of trees. "Are Christmas trees usually cypresses?" she asked. I said I'd never heard of them being used that way, and that Christmas trees are usually firs, spruces, or pines. Strange questions to ask, but they tie in with the idea of a white cypress as the Tree of Life. In my December 8 post "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-white-tree-of-life-saver.html">The White Tree of Life . . . Saver</a>," I mention the all-white artificial Christmas tree we use at my school and connect it with the Tree of Life.</p><p>One of the other students in that class had brought a tote bag with something about the Tree of Liberty written on it. I was only able to see part of it. The first line said "THE TREE OF LIBERTY" and the second line said "FAR AWAY IN THE," with the final word not visible. I'd never heard of the Tree of Liberty outside of the Jefferson quote about watering it from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Note added:</b> I forgot to include this in the original post. After my dream but before my morning class, I saw that some secondhand English children's books had been delivered to my school. I picked up one at random, with the nondescript title <i>People and Places</i>, and opened it up to the table of contents, where I saw this:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhggvqH1QWEAdXcLhGEqPrttjXeyWkquflxQKtSo4cekpq_JidJnqXLKSMbTQ7wBoop6xM_ZyAAskPMPJ0pKf_EzV3zXT6DQomvlOig7DoUNEDNn8iJflCtsnu883ZlFkSP4g2D7TU88C2ERWZXd2x_N6FeqQKNjjk0m0nBF-82aEYN4mnsqPx-k0c4Sk0/s649/people%20and%20places.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="539" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhggvqH1QWEAdXcLhGEqPrttjXeyWkquflxQKtSo4cekpq_JidJnqXLKSMbTQ7wBoop6xM_ZyAAskPMPJ0pKf_EzV3zXT6DQomvlOig7DoUNEDNn8iJflCtsnu883ZlFkSP4g2D7TU88C2ERWZXd2x_N6FeqQKNjjk0m0nBF-82aEYN4mnsqPx-k0c4Sk0/s16000/people%20and%20places.png" /></a></div><p>The picture, apparently showing some kind of controlled burn in Australia, synched in a broad way with themes from the dream, enough to make me turn to the pages on Australia, where I found this:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyNBrweMbhxqZd08g49hrK40VUlRRVRPV236in4Vp0recmh3iSbnjWklEplVuz3KYoujHoiysqC-z4rVc6rRsAbLclRKybvmBIHGpWBw-8KLacviPnbIszDp1dWq2G3lNV8ByYlrvt1ATmj0w06ym63wIZXw9aNNRcGSEHGJPjqamoBA22x9OimN9uB9M/s929/dancing.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="929" data-original-width="479" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyNBrweMbhxqZd08g49hrK40VUlRRVRPV236in4Vp0recmh3iSbnjWklEplVuz3KYoujHoiysqC-z4rVc6rRsAbLclRKybvmBIHGpWBw-8KLacviPnbIszDp1dWq2G3lNV8ByYlrvt1ATmj0w06ym63wIZXw9aNNRcGSEHGJPjqamoBA22x9OimN9uB9M/s16000/dancing.png" /></a></div><p>I have no idea how the aborigines make that gray-white body paint, but it certainly looks like it could be made from ashes mixed with water.</p><p><b>Update 2 (11:00 p.m.):</b> I checked my YouTube subscriptions and found this just-uploaded video which begins by zooming in on the words printed on the side of a box of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. I haven’t watched the rest of it yet, but already that’s a pretty specific sync:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MCKu6T8rA-Q" width="320" youtube-src-id="MCKu6T8rA-Q"></iframe></div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-30343956081791563162024-03-03T13:26:00.001+08:002024-03-03T19:50:10.402+08:00Backwards dreams<div>I dreamed that I was going to hear a speech by Nibley Hugh. (This was clearly Hugh Nibley, the 20th-century Mormon intellectual, but in the dream everyone called him Nibley Hugh.) I was with a group of people I knew, including some family members, but no clearly defined individuals.</div><div><br /></div><div>When we went into the building where the speech was to be held, which looked something like a university and something like a hospital, I accidentally went through the wrong door and found myself outside on the roof. When I tried to open the door to go back in, the door handle broke off in my hand, so I had to find another way. I spent some time climbing around on the roof, getting quite far from the door, and finally found a place where I could get back in through an open window.</div><div><br /></div><div>I found myself in what was very clearly a restricted room, used by the security personnel, and I was worried that if anyone saw me in there I would be in trouble. At first the room seemed to be empty, so I made for the door, hoping to get out before anyone noticed me, but then a large White man with blond hair and a beard appeared and blocked my path.</div><div><br /></div><div>I began explaining, in Chinese, how I had ended up in the room, but he just snapped, in English, "Where's your mask?" He was wearing a surgical mask, I now noticed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still speaking Chinese, I said, "Oh, is it all right if I use English with you?"</div><div><br /></div><div>He ignored this, or more likely didn't understand it, and said, "Are you going to put on your mask or not?"</div><div><br /></div><div>I found this annoying, said, "No, of course not!" in a dismissive way, and went back to explaining (in English now) how I had gotten lost on my way to the Nibley Hugh speech. After a bit more of this cross talk, he finally let me out of the room and into the lobby. I saw my friends there and realized that the speech was already over. It only felt like I had been gone for a few minutes, but I had missed the whole thing.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Where's Nibley Hugh?" I said. Someone told me that he was just leaving, but that I still had time to talk to him if I hurried.</div><div><br /></div><div>I saw him -- an extremely elderly man, looking to be well over 100 years old -- walking out into the parking lot. "Nibley Hugh!" I shouted, but he obviously couldn't hear me.</div><div><br /></div><div>I ran right up next to him and shouted in his ear, "Nibley Hugh!" He just kept walking, completely unaware of my presence.</div><div><br /></div><div>I went back to my friends and said, "He doesn't even seem to be aware of his surroundings. Was he really able to deliver a coherent speech?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"He spoke like a much younger man," someone said. "I think delivering prepared remarks is cognitively easier than interacting with people in real time."</div><div><br /></div><div>Despite missing his speech and failing to converse with him, I was very pleased just to have <i>seen</i> the great man. Just think, I said to myself, now I've seen [someone else] <i>and</i> Nibley Hugh! (The someone else was some contemporary Mormon scholar, perhaps Richard Bushman or someone like that, but I can't remember who exactly it was.)</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">⁂</div><div><br /></div><div>In a later dream the same night, I was exploring an enormous Catholic church made of unadorned gray concrete. The church was conducting a survey and had created a system of narrow forking corridors for the purpose. The forks were shaped like tuning forks, not like Ys. At each fork in the corridor, there was a sign asking you a question, and then you'd go left or right depending on your answer. Then someone would count all the people coming out the various exists and would know how many had given each possible set of answers. The only question I remember was, "Do you think we should keep doing the Stations of the Cross every week, or only once at baptism?" (I'm pretty sure that question is nonsense, using Catholic-sounding vocabulary but in a way that would make no sense to an actual Catholic.)</div><div><br /></div><div>I tried to go through the survey corridors just for fun, but I found that I was going through them backwards. I had apparently started at one of the exits and was working my way back to the single entrance. At each fork, instead of having to choose between two paths, I was finding my path merging with that of people who had the opposite opinion. I was obviously doing it wrong, but I just kept going until I came out at what was supposed to be the entrance. I was met by a visibly annoyed priest.</div><div><br /></div><div>"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Sorry," I said, "I think I did your schism thing wrong."</div><div><br /></div><div>"<i>Schism</i>? What's that, <i>music</i> spelt backwards?"</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">⁂</div><div><br /></div><div>In a final dream vignette, I was looking at an English dictionary to see if it would be suitable for my students. Flipping through it, I found an entry for the word <i>skunkkeeper</i>, and I was impressed that such an unusual word had been included.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">⁂</div><div><br /></div><div>Note added: Several hours after these dreams, including the one in which Hugh Nibley is repeatedly referred to backward, as Nibley Hugh, I ran across this on the Internet, referring to Presley Elvis:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6QsaFYyYqQVNqCtPrzA81BakSVJYEvU4wAE8-nd8ee7UcHNESblMyiIQBrzgd1BWCGKwrG8W23V9pkA4AW6VgavwaxXOQRigTNuey_7Pw8A3rTjRq7s3akROBEEr8dK3oVkWO_xSCgDTW3yUexvXI9_hV1qL-8-0-Rmkgn8Ju8mms3jGRa1v72162Gco/s549/presley%20elvis.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="130" data-original-width="549" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6QsaFYyYqQVNqCtPrzA81BakSVJYEvU4wAE8-nd8ee7UcHNESblMyiIQBrzgd1BWCGKwrG8W23V9pkA4AW6VgavwaxXOQRigTNuey_7Pw8A3rTjRq7s3akROBEEr8dK3oVkWO_xSCgDTW3yUexvXI9_hV1qL-8-0-Rmkgn8Ju8mms3jGRa1v72162Gco/s16000/presley%20elvis.png" /></a></div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-79256001110035959392024-03-01T00:31:00.001+08:002024-03-01T07:41:44.888+08:00Stop strongly interpreting the dot!Another <a href="https://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/37336077">“strongly interpret the dot” thread</a> on /x/. One of the first replies says, “It’s because of the <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/02/27/lifestyle/parents-furious-after-kids-cry-over-embarrassing-willy-wonka-event/">Willy Wonka event</a>, isn’t it?”Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-12504715446378889902024-02-29T15:27:00.001+08:002024-02-29T17:02:46.164+08:00A red frisbee almost brained him<div>My last post, "<a href="https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/02/dinoco-here-we-come.html">Dinoco, here we come!</a>" brought up the Al Jolson song "California, Here I Come," with its repeated line, "Open up that golden gate." At the same time, I have been reading Karen Russell's novel <i>Swamplandia!</i> about a family that owns a gator-wrestling theme park with 98 alligators, all of which are named Seth. These two things together made me think of <i>The Golden Gate</i>, the 1986 novelty novel by Vikram Seth, which is written entirely (even the table of contents!) in Onegin stanzas, the verse form invented by Pushkin for his verse novel of that name. Here’s the first stanza of the novel proper:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>To make a start more swift than weighty,</div></div><div><div>Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon</div></div><div><div>A time, say, circa 1980,</div></div><div><div>There lived a man. His name was John.</div></div><div><div>Successful in his field though only</div></div><div><div>Twenty-six, respected, lonely,</div></div><div><div>One evening as he walked across</div></div><div><div>Golden Gate Park, the ill-judged toss</div></div><div><div>Of a red frisbee almost brained him.</div></div><div><div>He thought, "If I died, who'd be sad?</div></div><div><div>Who'd weep? Who'd gloat? Who would be glad?</div></div><div><div>Would anybody?" As it pained him,</div></div><div><div>He turned from this dispiriting theme</div></div><div><div>To ruminations less extreme.</div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>In my Dinoco post, I linked to William Wright's <a href="https://coatofskins.blogspot.com/2024/02/theres-hole-in-my-bucket-face-and-harry.html">post about Dinoco</a>, which latter post also happens to feature this image:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2OpuErgi_t5FWidciixJCWiEJ1-sC6W4eGo-IhurZ2CLQ82xrNzqz6Ir1pJb2l1YpB17plY9LvXJ3bqENQWIdsfm8Hh-Zve7WupRoVsU0bfT3yxSMSTYOj3rl-uI0mkRgzZkIwK5-vgJMWBjH5l4xFEenMtBnnJy7JFerfoCw5fl9icOKaksBnhVbnc4/s467/lions%20den.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2OpuErgi_t5FWidciixJCWiEJ1-sC6W4eGo-IhurZ2CLQ82xrNzqz6Ir1pJb2l1YpB17plY9LvXJ3bqENQWIdsfm8Hh-Zve7WupRoVsU0bfT3yxSMSTYOj3rl-uI0mkRgzZkIwK5-vgJMWBjH5l4xFEenMtBnnJy7JFerfoCw5fl9icOKaksBnhVbnc4/s16000/lions%20den.png" /></a></div><br /><div>There's the name <i>John</i>, together with an image that is certainly suggestive of someone getting brained by a red frisbee.</div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5953806385060168124.post-5132744760229564392024-02-29T14:42:00.002+08:002024-02-29T15:13:56.189+08:00Dinoco, here we come!In his February 20 post "<a href="https://coatofskins.blogspot.com/2024/02/theres-hole-in-my-bucket-face-and-harry.html">There's a hole in my bucket-face! AND Harry Marsh and the Sorcerer's Stone</a>," William Wright devotes considerable space to Dinoco, a fictional company appearing in Pixar's <i>Cars</i> and <i>Toy Story</i> franchises. He includes images of two different versions of the Dinoco logo and, following his usual MO, tries to interpret the name as Elvish. I've never seen any of these movies, except the original <i>Toy Story</i> back when an all-CGI movie was a revolutionary idea, but William's post cemented the name <i>Dinoco</i> in my memory.<div><br /></div><div>Today I was in a restaurant that always plays obscure royalty-free music, and they played "California, Here I Come" -- not the 1939 pop standard by Jewish (and therefore not racist) blackface performer Al Jolson, but a bluesy number by a female vocalist, with the same repeated line and presumably the same title. I tried to look it up on my phone but got distracted by one of the search suggestions:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWQa81Zl6RmsgtIGnwl9wuOMo5PvFKq7zfZAhDKaHz5fTZgvfytiMY5syVn0trLJRKqh7YGLKk1PxQoqgdYmzcePV8sWkk2oYN4-Id65SUUynMLLSAeycxjxx50hYAQZHOqkK5qgUBxZUrWl52JwN2xtAZFfdysm2Vfb0yAYKatoQ988JNTAtgBYPVIO0/s425/california%20here.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWQa81Zl6RmsgtIGnwl9wuOMo5PvFKq7zfZAhDKaHz5fTZgvfytiMY5syVn0trLJRKqh7YGLKk1PxQoqgdYmzcePV8sWkk2oYN4-Id65SUUynMLLSAeycxjxx50hYAQZHOqkK5qgUBxZUrWl52JwN2xtAZFfdysm2Vfb0yAYKatoQ988JNTAtgBYPVIO0/s16000/california%20here.png" /></a></div><br /><div>Apparently there's a scene in one of the <i>Cars </i>movies where a truck says "California, here we come!" and then Lightning McQueen, the racecar, corrects it to, "<i>Dinoco</i>, here we come." That's it. Maybe it's funny in context or something, but for whatever reason this run-of-the-mill line of dialogue is vying for search attention with the King of Blackface.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IP23zlXbwSk" width="320" youtube-src-id="IP23zlXbwSk"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rPH5ZQIpUrw" width="320" youtube-src-id="rPH5ZQIpUrw"></iframe></div>Wm Jas Tychonievichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com0