Rhinocrisy

It’s perhaps too early to select a video of the year for 2009, but as a long-time admirer of ladies’ footses, I think this one should at least be in the running. It definitely makes me like Richard a lot more.

Via: the Daily Show, which has been surprisingly and refreshingly anti-Zionist this week.

I’ve been listening to a lot of 80s pop music lately, via Pandora. I know; it’s embarrassing. But what can I do? I like to dance, and I like being reminded that I like to dance. My favorite new discovery is this one:

While trying to find out about Elton John’s album “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy”, I came across this important piece of news:

In February, a judge in New Zealand made a young girl a ward of court so she could change her name from Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.

I’m off to India tomorrow! See you in two months.

I got a copy of the Saga of the Volsungs, the Norse epic which Wagner based his “Ring” cycle on. Like its later medieval counterpart, the Nibelungenleid, it’s a bit strange to modern sensibilities, as exemplified by this early version of the Dozens, played between Sinfjotli, the progeny of the Volsung twins Sigmund and Signy, and Granmar, a rival king.

Sinfjotli stood up, his helmet shining like glass on his head, his coat of mail white as snow, his spear in his hand adorned with a magnificent banner, and his shield rimmed with gold before him. This man knew how to speak with kings.

“When you have fed your pigs and hounds and you meet your wife, say that the Volsungs have come and King Helgi can be found here in the army, if Hodbrodd wants to meet him. And it is Helgi’s pleasure to fight with distinction while you kiss your bondwomen by the fire.”

Granmar answered: “You are not able to say much of worth or speak of ancient lore, since you lie about noble men. More likely it is that you long nourished yourself on the food of wolves out in the forest and killed your brothers. And it is strange that you dare to come in an army with good men, you who have sucked the blood of many cold corpses.”

Sinfjotli replied: “You probably do not remember clearly now when you were the witch on Varinsey and said that you wanted to marry a man and you chose me for the role of husand. And afterward you were a valkyrie in Asgard and all were on the verge of fighting for your sake. I sired nine wolves on you at Laganess, and I was the father of them all.” [Oh, snap! - ed]

Granmar responded: “You are a great liar. I do not think you could sire anyone because you were gelded by the giant’s daughters on Thrasness. You are the stepson of King Siggeir and you lay in the woods with wolves, and all misfortunes came to you one on top of the other. You killed your brothers and made for yourself an evil reputation.”

Sinfjotli answered: “Do you remember when you were a mare with the stallion Grani and I rode you at full speed on Bravoll? Afterward you were the goatherd of the giant Golnir.”

Granmar said: “I would rather feed the birds on your corpse than quarrel with you any longer.”

The strangest part of this exchange is that Granmar never manages to pull out the obvious, “Your momma is also your aunty!”

Well, it seems once again the people who manage the Golden Gate Bridge are considering installing a suicide barrier (previously feted by hibiscus in this brilliant comment). The barrier would be a 12-foot tall fence, or possibly nets - yes, nets - to catch the jumpers, like so many fish flopping off the deck of a boat. Suicidal people wouldn’t be killing themselves, after all, if they didn’t have a bridge to jump off. I mean, it’s not like they can just swallow some pills, or something. Wait, can they? Oh, nuts! We should ban those - and maybe also rope, which could conceivably be used to form a noose, if they knew how to tie knots. Perhaps we should ban knots?

I am riding my newly-acquired bike through the Panhandle, the strip of greenway that leads into Golden Gate Park. It is midnight. A sprinkler guards against my forward progress with a parabolic fan of water. I slow my bike. A flat white light is strobing from behind me; another biker is pulling up. “Oh, shit,” he says, observing our dilemna.

“You’ve just gotta wait,” I say. “Just time it.”

“It’s all about the timing,” he agrees. I see a movement to my right - a third bicyclist is cutting through the grass, attempting to circumvent the gantlet of sprinklers.

“That’s an awfully long jet,” I remark, queasily. “Is it coming towards us? It is coming towards us!” We edge backwards. Then, “Fuck it!” I declare, and charge forward. The first spray is not so bad - I slip through the least of it. The second hits me full on, drenching my jeans. The wind immediately cuts into my wet hands, chilling them.

“Oh - that’s cold!” I hear from behind.

We are now officially headquartered in San Francisco.

graft@deneb:/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.15$ grep -r shit * | wc -l
103
graft@deneb:/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.15$ grep -r fuck * | wc -l
51

This song is from the ending credits of Valve’s stellar first-person-puzzler game Portal, as sung by the mad AI GLaDOS. I find the lyrics very poignant, especially:

I’m doing science and I’m still alive.

Hi, folks. I’m trying to get this wreck of a vessel sea-worthy again, so we’ll start off small:

During my illness I read a little bit about mononucleosis, which involved traversing a field littered with medical jargon. Jargon in general is odious and properly to be despised, but medical jargon seems especially useless, since it seems to add almost no specificity. For example, one of the symptoms of mononucleosis is “splenomegaly”. This is a fancy-pants term that means you have an enlarged spleen. What the Christ? In some instances you might have to have a “splenectomy”, also known as a spleen removal. The utility of creating and employing jargon of this sort is that it produces “macrocephaly” in doctors.

Since my sister brought it up, I suppose I might as well cover my “achaar as prasaad” theory in big, bold letters so everyone can read it.

The first obstacle in appreciating this theory will be unfamiliarity with its components. So, let me review, briefly.

“Achaar” is simply the Hindi word for “pickle”. You’ve probably consumed an Indian pickle before - they’re usually made with fruit of some sort and are heavily spiced, quite salty, usually tart and sometimes make your tongue burn with a righteous fire. I have been a fan of savory foods my whole life and enjoy eating achaar a great deal.

“Prasaad” is the Hindi word for “oblations”, and refers to a bit of food offered as a sort of sacrifice to God during prayer. There’s many problems with this arrangement, such as:

• Why does God need to eat?

• Even if God does need to eat, why can’t he/she/it take care of him/her/itself?
• Is there really any value in symbolically offering food to an omnipotent deity, especially when you’re going to eat it anyway right afterwards?

However, these are only problems for cantankerous individuals such as myself who just can’t wrap their heads around the idea of why God needs or wants to be worshipped in the first place.^* Anyway, that’s not the point: when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and when hanging around with normal, devoted Hindus, play along, even if you don’t find yourself quite believing in everything. Social utility is something I can appreciate.

Prasaad is usually something sweet. In fact, it is nearly always something sweet. Indians are quite fond of sweets and have managed to produce a dizzying number of variations on the theme of sugar, milkfat and flour. The appeal of sweets is quite clear: our biochemistry is based on the metabolism of simple sugars such as glucose or fructose. It’s sensible, therefore, that we’ve evolved a palette that appreciates and even relishes the taste of sugar. Most people love sweets and can gorge themselves endlessly on them.

Not I. I detest sweets. I suspect my palette is a little oversensitive to sugar. I usually react by having strange sugar rushes and mini-seizures when I try to eat something sweet. Un-pleasant!^†

Follow, then, my logic:
We’ve already established that anthropomorphic concepts of God are in order. I’m not prepared to accept this premise, but it seems to be the mode, and so we will take it as given. Wisdom suggests that presenting God with sweets is worthwhile because God, like us, would enjoy eating some sweets. Why? Who knows.^‡ But if hubris is the way we’re operating, why stop at an anthropomorphic God? Surely I should consider a God even more reflective of my ego - a Saurabh-o-morphic God, as it were.^§ I don’t like sweets, I like achaar. Maybe God wants achaar as prasaad, as well.

My theory has merit. There’s almost universal agreement that the world is, generally speaking, a shitty place to live. Most theories of religion blame this on an evil genius of some sort, but it’s at least as likely that the fault is that of endless millions of worshippers, who have for thousands of generations been forcing sweets onto an unhappy and possibly lactose-intolerant God. If we merely corrected our transgression, I predict that a rain of petals would be our reward.

^* I previously described my difficulties with worship here. I’m certainly a fan of awe and humility before the vast, beautiful and unpitying Universe, but I still don’t know how to jump from there to the idea of worship as useful.

^§ Such a god would presumably refuse to be worshipped, would respond to prayer only infrequently, would often leave His stereo blaring upbeat, danceable rhythms across the heavens, and would occasionally manifest in gargantuan, terrifying forms, knocking over buildings and eating random civilians, just to show you-all what’s what.