Epitaph of the Amused

"A Bard's Epitaph" by Robert Burns

Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,

Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,

Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.

Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who noteless, steals the crowds among,

That weekly this area throng,
O, pass not by!
But, with a frater-feeling strong,
Here, heave a sigh.

Is there a man, whose judgment clear
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs, himself, life's mad career,
Wild as the wave,
Here pause-and, thro' the starting tear,
Survey this grave.

The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn the wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame;
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain'd his name!

Reader, attend! whether thy soul
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit:
Know, prudent, cautious, self-control
Is wisdom's root.

Prudent, cautious, self-control, wisdom's root. But Rabbie never had any of this and none of this makes the Bard what he is, and it is those enrapt in my thoughtless follies, those laid low by them that stop to drap a tear.

While I toast the haggis, and drink the wine, make the fellows laugh; across the countryside bonnie lasses cry in the dark. Were it not for them, the secret and not-so-secret muses, thinking they are getting while I am taking there would not even be a Bard.

Were it not for the Nellies, Peggies, Alisons and all the rest there would not be a Bard at all. There would be only a sad, overworked, and poor man named Robert Burness. For the love of a woman, the chase of the muse that amused me, there would be no verse and no epitaph. And so, I must ask, is it I that am the Bard, or only the voice of the bonnie lasses once young, once loved, always loved and always forever in my song? I have an epitaph, they live on--even if I broke their hearts.

And as I wax on I must advise, find a muse and she will educate you more than all the universities in the world, for she can inspire even a lowly farm laborer to sing the song of a country and of time. "O, Once I Lov'd a Bonnie Lass...."

Math, Memory, and Medes

"All the talks about nationalities, etcetera, well, the new age has very little patience for history. History is becoming more and more irrelevant" ( President Shimon Peres of Israel, interviewed by David Shankbone of Wikinews, 9 Jan. 2008)

Or is history becoming more and more relevant?

"Why should I bother my child with memory when he can buy a computer that will remember everything you asked him to remember?" (Shimon Peres, Wikinews)

Yeah, but can your child's memory be hacked, unplugged and stolen? Hmm, I suppose so, although it takes several years of "education" to achieve the hacked, unplugged, and stolen memory.

"Forget memory. Look, the new age is unprecedented. When something is unprecedented, it means it doesn't have a past, doesn't have a history. It's totally oriented on the future. And whoever dwells in the past, doesn't understand the future because the past is full of prejudices, of commitments. It arrests us. And then you say you won't commit a mistake, so you'll commit new mistakes." (Shimon Peres)

The Bard, bites his lip, wishes he could find a haggis to plug up the unprecedented arrogance of these words.

"The modern economy is based on global companies that don't have armies, don't have police; that don't have laws. They are based on good will, on inventions." (Shimon Peres)

And here, the Bard snorts. He would like to say, it better, truthfully, but the only words that come out are the ones written on the wall during a wild party many years ago, the number of what mankind has become: "MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN"

MENE can mean "numbered," "mina," which is an old measure of money. TEKEL, "shekel," (schmekle!) also a measure of money, can mean "weighed." UPHARSIN "Parsin" and "Peres" in the singular (also punning on "Persian," since they're about to crash the party and invade the kingdom any moment). Parsin means "to divide into many," while in the singular, Peres, it means to divide one time.

And so, we can see, through money, math, and weights what happens when one forgets their history and forgets to use their memory. If darling Belshazzar had remembered the story of his grandpa's grass grazing days, perhaps, his empire would not have been overrun with Persians and Medes. But alas, he was weighed in the balances and fell short. Perhaps, if he'd had his electronic memory gadgets on him he would have been able to Google, or find the file with the story. Thank goodness, that Daniel could still remember to refresh Belshazzar before he was killed that night.

The Bard Reads Nab

My favorite chapter of Vladimir Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading is chapter 8. It's superb.

"As far back as I can remember myself--and I remember myself with lawless lucidity, I have been my own accomplice, who knows too much, and therefore is dangerous."

"But then I have long since grown accustomed to the thought that what we call dreams is semi-reality, the promise of reality, a foreglimpse and a whiff of it; that is they contain, in a very vague, diluted state, more genuine reality than our vaunted waking life which, in its turn, is semi-sleep, an evil drowsiness into which penetrate in grotesque disguise the sounds and sights of the real world, flowing beyond the periphery of the mind--as when you hear during sleep a dreadful insidious tale because a branch is scraping on the pane, or see yourself sinking into snow because your blanket is sliding off."

"It exists, my dream world, it must exist, since, surely there must be an original of the clumsy copy."

"When still a child, living still in a canary-yellow, large, cold house where they were preparing me and hundreds of other children for secure nonexistence as adult dummies, into which all my coevals turned without effort or pain; already then, in those accursed days, amid rag books and brightly painted school materials and soul-chilling drafts, I knew without knowing, I knew without wonder, I knew as one knows oneself, I knew it even more clearly than I do now."

White Rose

As usual, I've been researching and note-taking across the globe, gazing in at people, places and events through my little window. I'm not sure how a research into the Tower of Babel brought me to the White Rose Leaflets, dispersed by freedom loving students at the university of Munich.

And as Sophie Scholl let one of the leaflets drop from a balcony, like a fall leaf to the floor, unbeknownst to her, a sweeper of lies, a gatherer of refuse saw. Not long after, she and her brother, Hans, along with their fellow student Christoph Probst were guillotined by their Nazi countrymen.

"Nothing is unworthy of a civilized nation allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct" White Rose leaflet 1

"it is high time to root out this brown horde" White Rose leaflet 2

"for every new day that you hesitate, failing to oppose this offspring of Hell, your guilt, as in a parabolic curve, grows higher and higher" White Rose leaflet 3

"'and further, it is part [of the nature of tyranny] to strive to see to it that nothing is kept hidden of that which any subject says or does, but that everywhere he will be spied upon,....and further, to set man against man and friend against friend, and common people against the privileged and the wealthy. Also it is part of these tyrannical measures to keep the subjects poor, in order to pay the guards and the soldiers, and so that they will be occupied with earning their livelihood and with neither leisure nor opportunity to engage in conspirational acts...Further, [to levy] such taxes on income as were imposed in Syracuse, for under Dionysius the citizens gladly paid out their whole fortunes in taxes withing five years. Also, the tyrant is inclined constantly to foment wars'"Aristotle qtd. in White Rose leaflet

"We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!" White Rose leaflet 4