Not Images Alone

I received a card featuring a rather realistic painting of a pickle with a tiny cartoon party hat clumsily appendixed to it. This was my congratulations card for getting a PhD. Apparently, the giver thinks I am "in a pickle". I prefer to consider the card a humourous gesture, though the card's insistance on "a bigger salary" gets no laughs when one would prefer for pickles to be in the refrigerator as actual food. But it is hilarious! Imagine the T-shirt: I earned a PhD and all I got was this lousy pickle. Pfwee. (Requisite sound of party horn.)
And maybe it isn't much of a party when there are so many academic expectations some of us brine ourselves in, great narratives of achievement, like the cry of the PB (personal best) in the running world. So many sites recommend a perfect draft before the defense, others expect that what happens is not always what is wished for. Yet this fixation of bests does not trouble everyone: some are content #rehashing.
Anyway, so one wakes up one morning, next to a card of a pary-hat-wearing pickle, and wonders how one got into a relationship where food has left the pantry for the portrait! One can't live on images alone. Apparently, It's So Hard to Leave Academe: for example, years and years of teaching likely mean a network shrunk to within the academy, making it hard to network for jobs beyond it. The alma mater now leaves students only partly nourished - but if nourishment is nurtured, she is not at fault, she herself had not been cared for.
As I write this post, it is as if I am willing myself to know the end to this story. But it has taken this long for me to write a more concrete post introducing the debacle.
Luckily, as I sat down to write, I also opened up Susannah Conway's December Reflections blog prompts, and today's is also about bests, as in a "best day". In the photo below was a rainbow I thought I was going to be able to run beneath on a long run, but which turned out to be an optical illusion: I was running alongside it. The elusive rainbow following the arch of the sun transports an elusive messenger who says that the arche is the idea that underlies images. It was a pretty good day when I saw that rainbow, memorable, sometimes perhaps what evades is closer than one might think; maybe this is the test of eidos, where action proves essence needn't be idea alone.

Brush: Misprinted type.

Marble on Wood

John O'Donohue speaks of, "secret unattached places" beyond "'he does this, she says that'" where there is a "being together beyond professional banter". If it is so hard to get along, perhaps this place can be tendered through humour, because the whole point of this otherness is that it can only be offered and certainly not pushed, because (to interpret O'Donohue) fixed energy quickly becomes bland, "the bland intrusion of a thing which is fascist". Marble on wood: it's cool on warm, shiny on absorbent, a trick I learned from food meant for the imagination as much as for the blood stream (commentary on the phenomenon here deferred).This, in effect, is humour, a phenomenon upon which Edward de Bono is fascinatingly in agreement with Sufism. He writes (Mechanism of the Mind) that stories establish patterns of thought but that jokes, i.e. laughter, allow for new connections to be made in the brain, by taking a different route than normal. He also notes about jokes (I Am Right You Are Wrong) that while they rely on an established story to disrupt, once they have become as familiar as the story, they cease to be funny (I would add, unless the delivery is immaculate). What I am interested in here is in breaking a pattern - without just running away (patterns have a funny way of following a person, anyway).

There are a few lines I am not sure that I understand in Hamlet: "Tis danger when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposite". I have removed these lines from context, contemplating images of what they might mean (please do comment/send an email - above left if you might enlighten me). Without wanting to sound trite, I think that part of my job in life is to try to find metaphors to link disparate themes, uncouth clashing. And I suppose that the easiest way to do this is to abstract out, in the same way that many bridges rise up towards the sky: there is an incline. The Hamlet quote implies that other connections can be made that are not so noble, where 'opposite', instead of being seen as an invitation to the imagination, or to humour, is seen as a route to clash. Here I see Athena rise up: only warring when she really must. Otherwise, she uses wisdom. And I am beginning to surprise myself by thinking that an important dimension to wisdom (which I always imagined as curmudgeonly) is humour.
Because wisdom is not a popular attribute among contemporary thinkers, I will cite two thinkers from the past on this subject: John Chrysostom and Rumi. The former was known for "peppering" his sermons with humour, which does not mean that he thought it should be used unreservedly. He notes in Homily XV, On the Priesthood, that "laughter often gives birth to foul discourse" and that humour as "those things that are indifferent" can, if unchecked, lead to trouble, just like luxury, if immoderate, leads to all kinds of extremes. But as one not promoting extremities but Aristotle's golden mean, he sees a place for humour, and used it himself. In Homily XV, Hebrews ix, he writes, "There is no harm in laughter; the harm is when it is beyond measure, and out of season. ... Laughter has been implanted in our soul, that the soul may sometimes be refreshed, not that it may quite be relaxed."
This latter distinction is not something I have experience to write about; rather, I am interested in the point made about refreshment. Release from old patterns, making space for something new: creativity.

As for Rumi, his role in this discussion is made clear by the title of a book by Idries Shah, Special Illumination: The Sufi use of humour (wikipedia). In this book, which I read as far as the Google program would let me, Shah cites Plato, from Laws VII, where the Athenian says, "serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites" (I am reminded of the Hamlet lines). Here, Shah speaks of the "humourless bully", which perhaps describes one's worst workplace nightmare, though, surely, few people are consistent extremes.
An example of one joke in Shah's book is as follows: "An oil-drilling millionaire went to a dentist who said, 'Which tooth do you want me to deal with?' 'Oh,' said the tycoon, 'drill away anywhere, I feel lucky today!'" This, Shah explains, is called putting the situation in another context (and corresponds with the definition of humour by de Bono at the incipit of this post).
What I found in Shah that I did not find elsewhere was the point that some people, who invest too much "capital" in their "exercises" fail to see humour in jokes like the one above. But people are seeking out food like marble on wood...
Tasteful humour ostensibly provides relief and is at the very least a personal offering for another route to be taken.

Brush: Ewansim at DeviantART.

Laughing sacrifice?

My ears, or mind, was burning after reading a post on "what Eric Hoffer called 'true believers'". I didn't look Hoffer up, but I was wondering to myself about what it could mean, and I suppose that 'true believers' – from the context of the poem cited in the post (1:see below picture) – refers to those who exaggerate in zeal. For example, anyone becomes a believer (even an ostensibly rational scientist) who takes the promise of their field too literally, not understanding that "all renderings of experience are symbolic interpretations, that all discourse and all knowledge is a metaphor... Idealism, that is, is not science, but imagination, poetry, and art, and so is science!," writes Randall.
You may know that I am rather intrigued by laughter, and more specifically, a particular print of a laughing Buddha. What I am learning is that laughter, particularly the kind where one does not take oneself too literally is a useful social tool. Laughter is also on my mind because I read a fantastic post this morning about "the intensity of a boy who is laughter and also sacrificial fire".
So what happens if our view of the world is not so literal, or fixed... Perception becomes fluid, the "places" (topoi) where we put ideas shift; the geography of our world shifts. It takes a strong or very curious thinker to endure such tectonic activity: one may fall. And this is where I place belief: at this transient crossroads, where one's own existence is seen as tentative, so one feels ever merciful towards others: we are all in the same uncertain predicament.
Enter the fire rock, lapides igniferi, described here as protagonists in bestiaries – for they are rendered anthropomorphic. Some bestiaries bring "lithic vitality into wholly unexpected – and dangerously combustive – realms, spaces in which easy assumptions about what it means to be human or alive fall apart. Rocks are anthropomorphized not with the effect that the petric becomes more knowable, or assimilated into the human, but stone instead is removed from that constrictive familiarity which prevents realization of its queerness." (Cited here.)
In other words, rocks, in the medieval world "have the capacity to organize the humans who look at them, based on what they see, rather than being simply subject to human desire" (cited here). Fascinating to imagine a time when man allowed the universe to make an impression on him - not the other way around, as is the case today.
I would argue that seeing requires the boundaries to be blurred. But I do not agree that we are to remain in transgression; rather that transgression, like marginalia, brings an aside of insight to the body of text. To understand the dangers but meaning of (given our imperfect minds) transgression is to understand we do not possess a literal truth. Perhaps this is part of what is meant by sacrificial fire that is also laughter?

Element.

(1) The post cited Robinson Jeffers' Thebaid: "How many turn back toward dreams and magic, how many children/ Run home to Mother Church, Father State,/... Sad children, yes. It is lonely to be adult, you need a father./ With a little practice you'll believe anything./ ... Faith returns, beautiful, terrible, ridiculous,/ And men are willing to die and kill for their faith."

The cigar takes time

Yesterday evening, I watched Larry Eats a Pancake, the first episode of Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. I was thrilled by the little zen twists to the art of his comedy about nothing. I also noticed subtle Woody Allen references. I didn't watch Seinfeld when it came out, I once shunned the TV. Later, I appreciated the series for its distinctive New York traits.
Namely, the fraternising with unexpected characters: e.g. I used to eat Spanish beans with a soap star who'd grown up on a commune, a yoga teacher, and an artist who worked for BR. There is something about this slice of life, with people at different intersections trying to figure life out for themselves, amateur thinkers, who collect books on obscure art movements from The Strand and study the psychoanalysis of space and who go to the odd harp concert held by their friends, if grudgingly. They comprise the tapestry of New York.
In a beautiful little book called The Unfinished City, NYU Prof. Bender explains that New York was initially modeled after Paris. While it became something quite different, it continued to look to Europe perhaps more than it looked to the rest of America. Bender describes New York as a city of pragmatic pluralism. I think that part of what made Seinfeld and Allen's films is part of this pragmatic pluralism, where odds and ends can be laughed off as eccentricity, summed up beautifully in Bender's phrase: "Intellectual and cultural life in the age of P.T. Barnum was a free-for-all," and a Henry James passage he selected, describing the "alien" in Central Park, "there in all his 'singleness of expression,' yet also sharing in a common 'possession of the park.'" "The social compound that is New York does not fit easily the dominant notions of the [mythical] meaning of America."

What I find fascinating about Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is that the pluralistic park has shifted from New York to LA. Indeed, Bender makes the observation in his book that today, America looks more like New York - as opposed to New York not fitting in the "America" of before. We can see this trend in the relatively recent launch of the LA Review of Books.
The other thing about Comedians is the quelque chose de France. Subtle elements of this were present in Seinfeld's comedy about nothing. Which aspects? I will now borrow from the Sorbonne's Prof. Truchet, whose summary of 20th century French literature includes: an interest in the process of writing itself (Seinfeld is a comedy about a comedian writing comedy); the literature of entertainment and consumption - sometimes exemplified by "easy" comedy, often referred to as "of the boulevard." A feature of these trends was that there was something for everyone: everyone could find something of interest. Prof. Truchet points out that this literature was not the kind that was given priority by universities - and did not warrant much commentary. We can infer that it was entertainment for entertainment's sake, one step removed from Horace's dulce et utile.
Which brings me back to Comedians. It approaches le Woody Allen in that there are one or two maverick philosophical turns of phrase - like the one in the title of this post. There is even a zen reference to not working, which I am sure you agree is not very "American," in its Puritan telling.
But the strength of the comedy is in the ability to retain our attention in the most trivial of topics. There is something absurd in this, and yet I am inclined to believe that there is grace in finding something worthwhile in the most mundane of tasks. Finally, I would have to say that this is a new American trait: to imbue the most trivial with something worthy of our gaze. Norman Rockwell once wrote: "When I go to farms or little towns, I am always surprised by the discontent I find. And New York, too often, has looked across the sea toward Europe. And all of us who turn our eyes away from what we have are missing life." It is perhaps in engaging the most trivial of details that there is hope that we aren't missing the life that we have.

Washi tape: pugly pixel.

let us not be overcome

Sometimes, it can seem like one is surrounded by people who work to make themselves look good by either singing their own praises, or disparaging others' efforts. The funny thing about this is that one can only be drowned out by such horn-tooting if one is equally as vain, and wants to be appreciated by everyone.
Er, rather, it isn't funny, and this is my Lesson of the Month. I got kind of tired of the being exposed to the same din over and over again, so today I decided: OK! Let me look small in their eyes. And no sooner did I decide that, I realised that the light could shine from behind me (not my own light), and I felt bigger (in my own heart) than I know myself to be. How odd! The larger I wanted to be, the smaller I became; and vice versa.
The usual steps were involved before this miraculous transition took place. First, I was very annoyed. Then, I distanced myself by poring over an exciting archaeology paper. So when I returned to my problems, I remembered which life story I want to write for myself. It isn't the story of tit-for-tat.
I can't have it both ways. If I want to be like that ostensibly super woman in the detergent advertisements, and have everyone always admire my clean laundry, I can't have a day off. I'd rather have the day off, and learn how to laugh at not having control of every situation. I don't know about where you live, but where I live, one has to learn how to deal with constantly shifting situations. So, as I said, I am being forced to learn what the Chinese call: being like bamboo (flexible). And to laugh at oneself first is to take that power away from other people.
My mother sent me, as a partial joke, and this has to do with our family's sense of humour about our high aesthetic standards, a little framed print of a "Teacher's Creed" (wisdom, truth, vision, love, etc); it also has a 3-D apple inside the frame, which is why it is so funny, so kitch, but what it's missing is HUMOUR. I find it really odd that Aristotle's second book (on humour) of Poetics is lost. Might that have been really important to the development of humanity?
Our view of the past is so limited because much is forgotten over time, and much goes missing. Imagine if the past were a person, would it be offended for being misunderstood? Or, here's another thought: do you think that there is a sense of humour to time?
I was born serious, so I have problems with figuring humour out. I'm partly kidding (I so love a good self-deprecatory joke), but going back to what I was saying: humour is really important in teaching. It protects one from malice, improves delivery, allows for humility and makes for a pleasant time of it. Dulce et utile. In all things, balance (oh Aristotle, how I love thy golden mean).
There is no need to be overcome. And when that moment comes, we shall leave the cave, and realise that we have been brought to a place of greater vision.

Elements: butterfly; needlework; paint brush; paper.

The Etiquette of Poirot

I like etiquette. I did a serious book report on it when I was 12. My research led me to the frightfully large tome, Miss Manners, but I live to tell the story... Since then, I've been a stickler for the codes that are observed for everyone to get on nicely. The other day, at the minimarket, I saw the most slovenly man come in, who greeted the cashiers with a hearty and most noble, "Good afternoon!" And I thought, this is a small triumph for humanity.
It is partly for such reasons that I have found it such a joy to watch Agatha Christie's Poirot. It not only gets better on second viewing, but is also educational, what with Poirot's well-mannered wit - which I would do well to imitate.
The most amusing examples of his wit occur in those earlier episodes, in his strained dealings with Chief Inspector Japp. After Japp speaks to him derogatorily, he says thank you!, good day sir. And while we all know that Poirot is not a man of false humility (how he loves to praise his intelligence!), he is a man of manners, and does not seek to justify himself in petty exchanges.
Is this not a lesson worth applying? Surely, there are times when one comes across those people who would put one down. So behold some of Poirot's similar exchanges, for inspiration:
♥ Inspector Japp: We've got twenty men on it, we from the station know how to get the job done, muscle
   and work, not like those little grey cells of yours. You should take a lesson from us!
   Poirot (who had already solved the case): Thank you chief inspector, I will keep that in mind.
♥ Jim Ferguson: You damn froggy eavesdropper.
   Poirot: Belgian! Belgian eavesdropper!
♥ Captain Hastings: Looks just like a patchwork quilt, doesn't it?
   Poirot: No!
   Captain Hastings: Well, it does to me. Does to everybody else.
   Poirot: Not to Poirot!
   Captain Hastings: Oh, I suppose you don't think that looks like a great mass of cotton wool.
   Poirot: No!
   Captain Hastings: I don't think you've got any imagination at all, Poirot.
   Poirot: That is true, mon ami. But fortunately you have enough for both of us.
And then, there is the play on words!:
♥ Inspector Japp: Swelp me, there's nothing wrong with my lingo.
    Poirot: You see, that is exactly the kind of expression like "'alf a mo" that brings the language
    into disrepute. Come, Hastings. I shall lend to the Chief Inspector my personal copy of The English as
    She Should be Spoken.
♥ Inspector Japp: Poirot - buzz off like a good chap, will you? I've got bigger fish to fry.
    Poirot: In a good bouillabaisse the little fish are often tastier than the big ones.
    Inspector Japp: What are you talking about?
    Poirot: Add poison, however, and the whole soup is polluted. Then the size of the fish are
    immaterial.
    Inspector Japp: What's fish got to do with it?
    Poirot: It was your own metaphor; I didn't bring the fish...
    Inspector Japp: I didn't either!
    Poirot: Stop fish then! Let's leave it out!
It is particularly amusing for me to see someone with a level of culture who is also able to be so witty. I am afraid to say that there seems to be a shortage of wit today and too many Mrs. Buckets! However, Poirot reminds us to brush off asides, and put a mustache on it!

Elements: frame: besotted; newspaper: mellowmint;

mustache, apple, frame: minitoko.

Ice breaking

Yes, I think I should get an award for ice carving, given the amount of effort I put in to relations with frosty people. Of course, it can totally backfire, and what is so fascinating to me about this, is that I end up looking like the bad guy.
The type of conversation I have trouble with is when someone doesn't want to observe the rules of fair play or etiquette for whatever reason, so they attack their interlocutor. In this way, they deflect attention from themselves, and the interlocutor, who was being polite and respectful, is suddenly in the strange position of having to be defensive.
Well, you know how these things can pile up in winter. Such has been my week. But I do not want to be overcome. So, I have been reviewing my basic lessons: 1. Remembering who I am (I generally try to help and be nice to people). 2. Oh yes, let me extend point 1: I am also an honest person most of the time, so I don't lie by saying things like: all students come to my class all the time (when the subject of my colleagues' claims happened to come up with my students, how they laughed). 3. What my Godmother says: it's only the good horse that stirs up dust behind it - because that is a sign it is moving. 4. Not everyone will understand. 5. Good people are good and generally give others the benefit of the doubt; some people aren't, and they never will be. Never, here, meaning, no expectations.
My problem is that I expect to be friends with everyone, and by "friend" I mean it as defined in previous posts. I think the problem is that I see that I am willing to carve something beautiful out of anyone's ice, because I just like it better that way, surrounded by beauty - and I also love it when people give me the space to shine to the best of my abilities. But, that's just not the way everyone works.
Rather than give up on my Project for Humanity (don't you love self deprecating humour, or is it the result of a colonial upbringing), I'd rather try to inject a dose of laughter. Do you remember that Monty Python scene, where a door-to-door salesman tries to pawn the oddest games, saying, "Breaks the ice at parties!" Well, sometimes, I wish I had a few silly wares - so, in the moment of attack, I would turn it into a joke. But, with all things, I suppose mastering this takes time...
And to wrap this post up, I was most happy to see a quote from the children's book Velveteen Rabbit today:
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
It is a beautiful life, no matter what "they" say!

Elements: mod circle, needlework: minitoko; papers: mellowmint.

"...triangular objects that fell from the sky"

i.e  shark teeth.      They were used as amulets during the Renaissance, thought to be the petrified tongues of dragons or snakes, and to have the power to ward off snake bites. It was Pliny who thought they were "objects that fell from the sky" during lunar eclipses. While they have the strength to grind up a man, man has used them as tools to prepare food, as well as weapons, on daggers and arrows.
I remember finding one as a child, it was black, and smooth. But why shark's teeth, as a blog post theme?
I was thinking today of all those difficult things we experience as human beings, how much we can be hurt by those closest to us, by their shark teeth, if you will. This was one of the themes on this week's Parenthood, which I am convinced is written by a therapist. A mother turns 40, and her daughter skips out early to hang out with friends. The mother talks to her mother, who reminds her that she, too, ditched her 40th birthday all those years ago. We humans are inclined to take more notice of the thorns that wound us than the thorns we throw at others. Even if we do not do the same hurtful thing to other people, we still have our own brand of hurtfulness, our own Jaws.
The other day I had an interaction with an older student who approached me as an equal, and proceeded to denigrate the institution I work for, and some of the educational principles I stand for. She had received a different education in the interim - one that has its place, but not one that I would substitute for the whole of what education is, and should strive to do. I was so irritated by this encounter, for I could have stood to learn something from her, but because she took for granted what she was saying, she couldn't articulate the benefits of the education she received.
When I related this encounter to a friend, he said, you need to learn to be more pleasant. - Pleasant?! - Yes. I need to file down those teeth. Both in how I treat others and in how I treat myself. So, this afternoon, as I expect to see this student again, I plan on saying something welcoming to her, as a gesture of good will. And as for how I treat myself, I think I need to stop expecting people who call themselves 'students' or 'teachers' to be sensitive to objectivity. But if you've ever seen a shark's tooth, you know that it would take a long time and much effort to file it down!
But now on to the fun part: the shark teeth, while injurious, can also be put to good use if we learn how.
I will wear it, as part of my metaphorical jewelery collection, as a piece of sky. Every time I hear the dun-dun-dun-dun leitmotif of the approaching shark, I will remember my own set of pearly whites.
What I am learning about the scientist I am researching for my dissertation is that he was so successful in life because instead of rejecting alien cultural or scientific methods, he worked hard to study them first, and instead of critiquing what he felt was wrong with them, he would work constructively on what he felt was a better direction --- using the best parts of what he would otherwise critique (ex. he was not fond of technological development in his own country, but suggested using technology to teach students about agriculture during winter months).  The tooth becomes a tool.
And below is a picture collage for your aesthetic enjoyment. I call it Showroom: isn't it true that in our dealings with others, we should strive to present the best of ourselves?

Elements: paper bag, cabochons and medallion: pugly pixel;

retro frame: minitoko; ribbon: shabby princess.