My learned foes

A random choosing...you know, that little game we humans play with books where we open them and hope to find something interesting.

But it does make me smile a bit because it seems a bit appropriate. Following are some lines from Epistle to J. Lapraik, An Old Scotch Bard (1785), by the Bard, of course:

I am nae Poet, in a sense,
But just a Rhymer like by chance,
An hae to Learning nae pretence,
Yet, what the matter?
When'er my Muse does on me glance,
I jingle at her.

Your Critic-folk may cock their nose,
And say, 'How can you e'er propose,
You wha ken hardly verse frae prose,
To mak a song?'
But by your leaves, my learned foes,
Ye're maybe wrang.

What's a your jargon o your Schools,
Your Latin names for horns an stools;
If honest Nature made you fools,
What sairs your Grammers?
Ye'd better taen up spades and shools,
Or knappin-hammers.

A set o dull, conceited Hashes,
Confuse their brains in Colledge-classes!
They gang in Stirks, and come out Asses,
Plain truth to speak;
An syne they think to climb Parnassus
By dint o Greek!

Gie me ae spark o Nature's fire,
That's a the learning I desire;
Then tho I drudge thro dub an mire
At pleugh or cart,
My Muse, tho hameley in attire,
May touch the heart....

But MAUCHLINE Race or MAUCHLINE Fair,
I should be proud to meet you there;
We'se gie ae night's discharge to care,
If we forgather,
An hae a swap o rhymin-ware,
Wi ane anither....

Of course, those of us that have the Muse and Nature's fire, but not enough money to pay for time to confuse our brains in colledge classes must content ourselves with Rabbie's sentiments, but we will always wonder where we could've gotten if we had been able to come out Asses.

After all, one needs a degree to climb Mount Parnassus. It matters not if honest Nature made you a fool, as long as your Grammar is good enough to hide behind.

(side note: the spellcheck on Blogger doesn't believe the contraction "could've" exists! How very interesting.)

image: Shakespeare (Chandos), full of Nature's fire, hamely in attire, mystifies mountain climbers.

Time's Glass

"I'm frightened, Auntie Em; I'm frightened," says Dorothy as she awaits her demise in the Wicked Witch of the West's castle.

The red sands of the hourglass are running out.

"New evidence is suggesting that time is slowly disappearing from our universe, and will one day vanish completely" ("New Theory Nixes 'Dark Energy': Says Time is Disappearing from the Universe," 13 Sep. 2009, www. dailygalaxy.com).

I knew it. This explains a lot. The reason I don't have enough time to accomplish what I'd like is because time is running out.

Professor Jose Senovilla of Spain, along with esteemed colleagues is proposing "that there is no such thing as dark energy at all, and we're looking at things backwards. Senovilla proposes that we have been fooled into thinking the expansion of the universe is accelerating, when in reality, time itself is slowing down" ("New Theory")

"[P]rof Senovilla says, the appearance of acceleration is caused by time itself gradually slowing down, like a clock with a run-down battery" ("New Theory")

Toto and I learned awhile ago that we're looking at things backwards. We're always looking backwards. It's part of being human. It's called history and memory.

I think that what the scientist may mean is that we're looking at things upside down. This earth is upside down. We like to reverse the divine order and fool ourselves that it is right side up.

I discovered long ago that things such as the Great Pyramids of Egypt are upside down. Really, they should be balanced upon their tips, but because we live in a reflection, they are balanced on their widest part, rather than on the tip as the originals are.

We only believe we are rightside up because gravity allows us that privilege.

What happens when time runs out?

And by the way, have you heard of the Wizard of Oz Experiment?

Coincidentally, I was wondering who is behind the computer curtain, then forgot about my musings until I came across this.

In the Wizard of Oz Experiment a person is lead to believe that they are interacting with an autonomous computer. In reality there is a "wizard," a human controlling things and interacting with the user.

And why is it that since a very esteemed personage came to town people have been joking about their computers and telephones behaving oddly?

Who is behind the curtain?

Well, I am Dorothy, the Meek and Small, and it's my billowing bale of hay, my cowardly carnivore, rattling can, and puppy in a picnic basket that melt the green one, not a Kansan with a hot air balloon. And it wasn't a dream, old pal, Hunk.

Last Harvest

There are two harvests. The first one is sweet, green, and ripe. The second is hard, dry, and shriveled.

There is always that fig tree and its dropping fruit mentioned in the Bible as metaphor. Many of us cold climate moderns know only of crab apples and chokecherries, and nothing of figs or that there is such a thing as two harvests from a tree.

The fig tree has two harvests, the spring one, and the later fall harvest.

But we do have two harvests in the northerly zones. We have forgotten this because we often throw the second harvest away or leave it to mold on the stem. I was thinking of this as I sat quietly alone on the grass, shelling peas. Old, dry and bitter peas.

The second harvest is picked, dried, kept in a dark place and brought out for later --in the spring where it will grow into a plant.

Some plants, such as carrots, produce seeds that only produce one piece of edible produce. Other seeds, such as peas, produce one plant but many pieces of edible produce.

Many of us don't save the seeds, but instead order new ones from the catalog every year. If we saved the seeds we would be more likely to wonder a bit about that second harvest and what it means. What does it mean to be saved, put aside, and hidden in a secret place out of winter's cold?

image: Rye Fields (1878) by Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin

Toto, who's behind the telescreen?

The Wizard of Oz will return to the Big Screen September 23. But, there is always that big butt, the company putting on the event won't display the theatres until one clicks the "buy ticket" button. And because I am naturally skeptical I won't click the button to find out if it's showing anywhere near me. For all I know, that one click could access my account and get me a ticket for New York City.

I finished my reread of George Orwell's 1984, since the Kindle brouhaha rekindled my desire to read it. It puts that overly referred to piece of poor writing and thinking by Aldous Huxley to shame. When will Amazon delete Brave New World from the Kindle? I surely wouldn't cry over that. Ascetics flagellating themselves near lighthouses have never impressed me.

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power." 1984

"Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the revolution." 1984

It was 1949 when 1984 was first published, and here we are! Telescreens everywhere. How was Orwell able to see so clearly?

Remember, when you look out a window that others may be looking in at you. Big Brother is a natural peeping tom.