Rumpelstiltskin, an endangered unmentionable

I heard today that the new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary eliminated numerous words, especially those that pertain to flora and fauna, animals, the nobility, and the church. But because the wordsmiths are modern and open-minded they also added some new words, especially those that refer to technology and person-to-person relations.

It makes me laugh a bit because some of the words added are: celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, citizenship, conflict, debate, compulsory, cope, donate,and endangered.

Amongst the non negotiable words; those that could no longer be tolerated, that conflicted in citizenship requirements, that are endangered, donated to the vandalized treasury of memory are: carol, cracker, holly, mistletoe, dwarf, elf, goblin, aisle, altar, bishop, chapel, disciple, minister, pew, psalm, sin, devil, coronation, emperor, empire, monarch, decade, adder, ass, beaver, boar, bullock, colt, doe, acorn, allotment, blacksmith, brook, diesel, manger.

I got a kick out of the explanation for ridding the dictionary of these words. Supposedly, words like "MP3 Player" are more relevant because kids are use to them (inspite of the fact that in a couple months the MP3 player will be obsolete because we'll all have a Borg2000), and words associated with nature are irrelevant because kids are not near it anymore. Words pertaining to Christianity are not "multi-cultural." I've used the dictionary most often to look up words that I am less familiar with, rather than for the ones that I am.

And doesn't it seem a bit demeaning to the little people, the dwarfs, elfs, goblins, and devils; to make them unmentionables? It's almost a sin.

This got me to thinking of Rumpelstiltskin, a celebrity in the goblin/dwarf world. He couldn't be named because his name had been removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary and all others several years before the miller's daughter was born. And because his name had been removed by the empire of tolerance, she could not quite identify him, or that he was a little devil. And so, because she felt endangered, like a forlorn little colt, she negotiated with the little what-ever-he-was, trading a necklace in return for an allotment of gold.

The next morning the emperor, was very pleased to find that the miller's daughter had turned straw to gold. But he wanted more, a decade's worth the next day. If she did not comply her citizenship would be revoked, and she would not get so much as a cracker to eat. The miller's daughter sat crying, singing psalms, once again feeling that her life was endangered if she did not produce a decade's worth of gold.

The miller's daughter sat on an old pew from the chapel, caroling, singing psalms, and crying until the short guy appeared. She hated the sight of him, but she remembered what she had learned after years in the compulsory schools, and that she must be tolerant and always negotiate with others because everyone is interdependent. The miller's daughter did not want conflict and consented to give the height-challenged man her ring in return for his promise of spinning a decade's worth of straw into gold.

The next day the emperor arrived to find the gold and was very pleased, but he wanted more. He told the miller's daughter if she could spin a manger full of gold he would kiss her under the mistletoe, marry her at the chapel in front of the altar, with the minister as officiant. The miller's daughter consented, but when the manger was brought before her she despaired. It was the size of a football stadium. She wished that her father had sent her to the abbey where she could have spent her life as a nun, ministering to the people of the parish. She felt like an ass or a helpless little cygnet.

Again the little guy appeared with an offer she couldn't resist. She felt that her life was as small and worthless as an acorn covered in fungus along a brook. In her deep despair and hopelessness, she consented to give the short one her first born child if he would try to spin the straw into gold, for she did not believe he could or that her life would be worth anything in the future. But she was wrong. The miller's daughter was coronated and made a monarch. She and the emperor walked down the aisle as husband and wife, while the bishop, minister, vicar, monks and nuns gathered to rejoice in the empire's new wealth and good fortune.

The queen gave birth to a daughter named Carol Holly. They drove her home from the hospital in a half-ton diesel pickup truck, and got her a little colt named Willow. The queen forgot about the short little celebrity that had saved her from becoming endangered.

One day the queen sat watching Carol Holly playing with Willow near the beaver pond where the drake duck liked to swim, when the short celebrity came to claim the little girl. The queen told the little guy that she would give him all the riches of the empire, including every abbey, altar, chapel, monastery, and pulpit along with a donation to the charity of his choice, if he would only allow her to keep her daughter. The little man did not like this,telling her "no, something alive is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world." But in the spirit of good citizenship, pretended to negotiate a deal with the queen. If she could name him within three days she could keep her daughter.

The queen went to the local blacksmith, the only person left in the academic empire, that was an adequate philologist. She asked him to unlock the vault where he kept the old words and seek for the name of the short man. He gave her a list of names and words which fit the description. The short creature arrived to hear what he expected to be a tolerant negotiation in which the queen would debate the enlightened ideas of interdependence in a vain attempt to avoid naming him. His eyes glowed greedily, as his hands itched to reach out and grab Carol Holly.

"What is my name?" he asked. The queen said, "Is it adder, or ass? Dwarf, goblin, or devil?" The little man was so enraged at being accurately named, that he stamped his legs into the ground and slithered off, never to bother the queen again.

Recognizing A Reflection

"[W]e enjoy contemplating the most precise images of things whose actual sight is painful to us" (Aristotle, Poetics). I don't quite feel this way when I see myself reflected in the morning mirror. Of course, Aristotle is speaking of even more grotesque sights, and of what makes tragedy "attractive" to us.

Tragedy is all about the reflection in the mirror. I've been reading Aristotle's Poetics, and pondering recognition and what it means and how it works. The moment of recognition by the blissful ignorant, is the moment when one sees evil and that they have oftentimes been complicit in its growth. Tragedy is like looking in a dark mirror held at a safe distance from the audience, yet close enough to feel pity for these Oedipus and Job types.

Tragedy is all about "reversals and recognition," and recognition is "change from ignorance to knowledge, leading to friendship or enmity" (Aristotle). And, according to Aristotle, one of the most pitiable types of tragedy is family member against family member, or recognition that a family member has brought evil upon the household. This truly is tragedy and the story of mankind and of apple orchards. One bad apple spoils the whole bunch, which doesn't necessarily have to be all bad, because they can all be pulverized and squeezed into a cider. But then, this leads to the proverbial separating the wheat from the chaff, which I think is a bit of a diversion here.

A poorly formed tragic character is one that commits an act with knowledge. This evokes no pity from the audience. "[T]he worst is for someone to be about to act knowingly..... this is both repugnant and untragic. Better is the act done in ignorance and followed by recognition" (Aristotle). This is why there are different penalties in courts of law for different murderers. If one premeditates a crime against another they are deemed "repugnant" because of their awareness and knowledge.

Now, Job is called a tragedy, but is it? It seems more like a comedy in its form. Perhaps, it is Tragi-Comedy. Job has a blessed life and has not done a thing to curse himself or his family, unless being faithful to the Great I Am is considered a negative. He is not ignorant, but fully aware and righteous. But Job is the tragic, fallen man that we love to accuse. Perhaps, the tragedy in Job is us, the observer. We are ignorant and unpitying, like his friends. Job, himself is the comedy, while we, looking on, are the tragedy. But are we even the tragedy if we don't have that moment of recognition? Hmm.

I could go on forever here. This recognition is why I love Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man. It is not the characters in the book that come to a moment of recognition, but the reader. I consider this an amazing feat to accomplish on the part of an author. It's one thing to show the recognition and reversal of a character in a story, but quite another to accomplish it in the reader. And so I'll be mulling this for awhile, because it's so grand, and important, and tragic.

"poetry is the work of a gifted person, or of a manic" (Aristotle, Poetics)

the image, Newborn Infant by Georges de La Tour, is one of my favorites because of the lighting and color.

Beam me up, there's no life down here. They're all holograms!

Beam me up! This is really something. Can we believe our eyes and ears anymore? Do we see what others see? Should we assume that others see what we see? I don't think we can assume this anymore.

When we sign up for certain types of music, the program profiles the user in order to create a music list that it thinks the user will like based upon past history. This means that each user is seeing a completely different list than another; that their world has become closed.

Cable television is working on similar technology, installing a sensor in the cable box which can tell who has walked in front of it, and will gear the programing to that person.

And as of last night, Nov. 4 CNN, is interviewing holograms! Except, they're not really holograms to those in the news room. The images are 2D, not 3D, but the person watching it from their living room doesn't know this, and may believe that the person is really there in front of the reporter. We are not seeing what the person in the newsroom is seeing. Soon, it may be, that everyone is seeing miracles and sublime things, while others don't.

And those that don't see the amazing images may be told that they don't have faith, don't believe, or haven't reached a heightened level of spirituality. This is amazing! Will Obama beam down from the White House for a Fireside Chat?