Post No.23

Simply irresistible

 

Post no. 21 (Parenting Skills, Lack thereof)

A few weeks ago we (my baby son, my wife and I) went to Gozo, to visit her relatives. As it happened, a friend of hers had just had a baby girl and  the friend’s mother insisted that we visit her.

We were reluctant, at first, because having just been through the experience ourselves, we knew that “other people” is the last thing you’d want to see in your house in those first few days of struggling with nappies and aiming breasts at your baby’s face… but I digress. To stop the nagging, we went.

Her friend and her husband are two of the friendliest people you’d want to meet. Never a frown or a harsh word. (Just to give you an example: He sides with Milan AC and I side with Liverpool FC. Remember Istanbul 2005. He still speaks to me and offers me beer. Can you be nicer than that? I think not). They welcomed us as though they had been expecting this moment all week… I mean … they were smiling. Incredible.

We chatted a bit about this and that when the doorbell rang. It was the priest who wed them. He came to congratulate them on their baby.

“Hmm, there’s something in the air I must say, what with all these babies around,” he said after congratulating us on 2 jobs well done “Don’t they bring joy and unity to a family?”

*CLICK*

“Yes, on TV, they do.”

He spun round on his sofa, his facial muscles fighting among themselves about whether to reorganise themselves into a look of shock and horror or remain frozen in a photo-op grin.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you know … you come home after a day’s work … all that crying …”

“But it’s what babies do, my son”

“No, I was talking about myself.”

“Ah…”

“It takes all my self control not to join in.”

Patronising nod.

“You get sleepless nights, dirty clothes, you end up washing the floor at 3 am because that’s when baby decides to bring up the milk …”

He looked at the other pair of new parents for support.

“But when I cradle her, I forget everything and everybody.”

“There, see?”

“It’s all very true, but it’s the bits in between I’m talking about”

“How do you mean?”

Back to square one.

“Babies require a mental and physical stamina the likes of which I would never have thought possible. You’ll have pick yourself up and go on, even when you don’t have the strength for it.”

“Yes, there’s that too.”

“You’ve got to support your wife in her most important job to date. You’ve got to keep a stiff upper lip when you know it wants to wobble all over the place … you’ve got to be there when you’re not and pretend you’re not there when you are …”

“Yes … yes … but …”

“A baby is THE test of the strength of a marriage. It breaks you and her. It’s only pigheaded determination that pulls you through…”

“Yes, yes … we call it love, where I come from.”

*CLICK*

It was my turn to look at him with my mouth open.

“You know you’re right?”

Patronising nod no. 2.

“Why do you think we bang on so much about love? Don’t you know we’ve heard all this a trillion times already? All you need is love, love, love. Love is all you need… Now let’s drink to that. Cheers.”

I was speechless. He was right. You only persist in all this because you love your wife and your incipient  family. For no other reason. I’d like to thank him again for reminding me.

It’s so easy to miss the wood for the trees.

Toodle-oo

 

Post No. 20 (It’s me again and again and again and …)

I’m currently reading Kil’n people by David Brin. The story is set some time in the future where means of communication are implanted into human bodies and computers have personalities. The really interesting thing about this story, however, is the fact that people can create colour-coded “clay-y” copies of themselves. Greens are good for chores, e.g. The more elaborate the task for which the copy is intended, the more expensive it becomes. At the end of a 24h period the ditto (i.e. the clay copy) has to return to base and inload the day’s memories into the original’s brain. The fantastically good thing is that you can create several copies so you can get several jobs done at the same time e.g. a grey copy to go to work and a black copy to think for you … or something like that …

It’s an entertaining story – easy on the mind and a very good break in between more involving reads. But I still struggle with the concept. Look at it this way. I’ve spent a whole day doing chores, I’ve been at work the whole day and I’ve been watching TV and playing playstation all day. At the end of the day, I inload all the memories gathered by all the “mes” into my brain and I would have experienced three days in one. And the interesting thing is that each ditto, though knowing that it’s disposable, is still an extension of me and acts in my best interest as though it were me.

I can’t wait for this technology to be available in good electronics stores near me … just imagine… I need to tell the wife something she doesn’t want to hear. I have 4 options:

a) tell it to her ditto and she only gets to hear it when she inloads the day’s memories, so it will be “taken as read” and she would have known what I wanted to tell her without me actually telling her.

b) get my ditto to tell her ditto with the result being identical to (a)

c) i or my ditto tell her ditto and observe the reaction. If the reaction is unfavourable, we just throw away the ditto – it is not morally a crime to eliminate a ditto – and start afresh until I like the reaction then let her inload that. The studied approach, I would call it.

d) get my ditto to tell her in the flesh – at least only the ditto gets the earful of invective and I can decide not to inload from that ditto on the day. Downside: I get the silent treatment without really knowing why … but hey … what’s new?

*sigh*

Writing this has given me the urge to pick up the book again … I’m no sci-fi fan, but the narrative’s gripping me, to borrow a phrase.

Toodle-oo

 

Post No. 18

Today I’m at home, down with a feverish cold of all things. That Beecham Flu Plus works wonders, I tell you. But then again, it could just be the placebo effect.

I’m sure you couldn’t be bothered with my state of health, so I’ll skip to the juicy bits.

I’ve been reading miles of column inches of drivel (pro and con to be fair) about divorce and abortion (as unrelated as the topics are to each other!) . I will not tackle the issues per se here because

a) it is not my place

b) there are persons  far better suited than I for the job

Suffice it to say that I am (try to be, rather) a practising Catholic and I can see the logic behind the Church’s stance (as explained in the Catechism) on the issues.

What interests me here is the methods used by either side of the divide. In a nutshell, the “popular” debate (i.e. what is being written on the blogs and in the newspapers) has become a ramming match. It is easy to see why.

The pro-divorce’s (and pro-abortion’s) corner is utilitarian and, I dare say, based on poorly-disguised solipsism. Life is now, what came before is water under the bridge and what’s still to come doesn’t exist so it’s not there. No argument, however brilliant or convincing, can sway such a frame of mind.

Then there’s the other corner: the anti-divorce and anti-abortion people. These should be arguing from the premise of the sanctity of marriage and that life is a gift from God. I think that when they fling about statistics borrowed from other countries they’re doing themselves a disservice.

How can you scientifically quantify the magnitude of social ills directly caused by divorce? How sure can you be that you have managed to effectively isolate cause and effect? I remember reading once a study – scientific, mind – claiming that wine is a better stress reducer than beer. A few weeks later a party-pooper asked whether or not it could be possible that rather than the drink reducing the stress, it was a matter of life style, i.e. people with a low-stress life-style have a propensity for wine and people who plump for beer are on average more highly strung individuals. There was a bit of thumb-twiddling and “uhm-ah”-ing all round and that was that. Same goes for studies trying to show the ghastliness of divorce and abortion. The conclusions can be easily shot down with a few well-placed questions.

Sometimes you hear the argument that countries where divorce has been introduced are reviewing the situation and are looking into ways to turn back the clock. Fine. But what is their motivation for doing so? I don’t know, but probably it’s got something to do with expenditure on welfare. Can we directly relate this expenditure to the existence of divorce?

The above points of view are smashed against each other innumerable times with nobody emerging as the clear winner. Obviously.

If you’re going to argue against divorce and against abortion it’s probably because you believe in the sanctity of marriage and in life as a gift from God. You can’t support these arguments by data and statistics coming from social scientists. It’s illogical. All you can say is that God gave us clear guidelines on how to live our life and then left us free to follow them (or not). At the end of the day it’s a matter of faith. Of course this won’t wash with a non-believing crowd.

If I believed in divorce no amount of statistics would make me say “hmmm … perhaps divorce isn’t so great after all”. If I think that a woman has a right to kill her unborn child no study on earth would make me think otherwise.

On the other hand, if people who, out of religious and moral conviction militate against divorce and abortion lead exemplary lives all across the board then their behaviour might just make others sit up and listen …

Toodle-oo.

 

Post no. 14 (The Last Supper)

THE Last Supper, by Da Vinci. One Peter Greenaway an English film director/script writer/artist etc etc used the 500 year old (give-or-take) fresco as a backdrop for a special effects light-cum-music show. The idea was to rehash the last supper for the ‘laptop generation’ – whatever that means. The event was the product of a lot of wrangling and compromises. Reception to the idea was *surprise*surprise* a mixed bag. I liked Vittorio Sgarbi’s comment best. It was something to the effect that Greenaway reconsecrated what Dan Brown had deconsecrated (in The Da Vinci Code). You can see some pictures and a short video clip here. He has plans to do the same with various paintings and frescoes, most notably the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. (Can’t wait to see that – if they give him permission to do it, i.e.)

My question is: Why does he have to do it on the original? What he does can be done just as effectively on a full size replica. (In fact that’s what he’s going to do with the last supper). The painting is incidental to the show.

I think that it’s got to do with the “magic” of the real thing. We all know what the leaning tower of Pisa looks like. We’ve seen zillions of pictures of it, yet we go to Pisa, roll around on the grass a bit and take the obligatory photo of us trying to straighten the tower. The same goes for the Big Ben, Eiffel Tower, the Little Mermaid (now if that isn’t a let down I don’t know what is), the Colosseum, etc. I don’t get it. Last year I went to Florence specifically to look at David (again). After wasting more than an hour in the queue I finally laid eyes on his big toe. wow. I walked around him a few times and left. I headed straight for Piazza della Signoria to look at David’s clone. I walked around that a couple of times too. I couldn’t see much of a difference (besides the colour). I was left wondering what all the fuss is about. What I saw in books was much clearer than what I saw face-to-toes. I look up at David and fill in the detail from memory.

Let me get one thing straight. David – as it seems that I have picked on him – is what he is. In no way am I saying that David’s beauty and importance are exaggerated. He – or rather his creator – deserves every last shred and sliver. But meeting him in the marble – “meeting him in the flesh” just doesn’t sound right, does it? – is no Damascene experience. You may argue that the constant bombardment is precisely that which desensitises us to his magnificence. I beg to differ. When you see the statue you don’t see a fraction of what you expect to see. The argument goes for practically anything that’s beautiful to look at or to listen to.

The point of creation is the defining moment of the painting, sculpture, melody, novel, dish, perfume, building. Given an adequate skill level, any painter can reproduce Van Gogh. When people see a replica of a painting they go “Look, Sunflowers by Van Gogh” (and hopefully the original would have been that, but anyway …) I bet that, confronted with the original Mona Lisa and an identical copy, we wouldn’t feel twice the tingling. And if we were shown the replica and told it was the original we’d still feel funny all over.

Well, I wouldn’t. There’s no way I’m ever going to behold the enigmatic smile face to face.

Toodle-oo.

 

Blogofascism

I have just gone through an interview with one Lee Siegel, published in last week’s New Scientist. I had never heard of the bloke before, but NS were kind enough to offer a quick bio of the man, reproduced below (I haven’t asked for their permission to use it, but I’m not making money out of it and I’m not saying I wrote it … )

Lee Siegel coined “blogofascism” to describe the intolerant name-calling on the net. He studied at Columbia University, New York (BA, MA and M.Phil), was an editor at The New Leader and Artnews, then a full-time writer, and went on to win the 2002 National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism. His books include Falling Upwards and Against the Machine: Being human in the age of the electronic mob, published by Spiegel&Grau (US)/Serpent’s Tail(UK).

In a nutshell, during a spell as a culture critic with a magazine, Spiegel’s articles attracted online abuse that his editors refused to remove. To counter the insults he posted some comments, under a nick, that were meant to put him in a good light. When they discovered what he did, he was suspended from his job and shamed. The interview then goes on about what he thinks is bad with the internet as a medium that stunts the growth of our social skills, what can be done to make the internet a better place etc etc.

I was impressed by the fact that he needed to invent the term “blogofascism”. This guy, for expressing an opinion – which he has every right to do, mind you – was abused and insulted by somebody who didn’t agree with him. What’s worse, this was done anonymously.

Whoever insulted Siegel had every right to disagree with what Siegel said, BUT s/he had no right to insult him in the manner s/he did (including calling him a paedophile – now bear in mind that Siegel was the culture critic for this magazine, so it’s hard to see why he was called him a paedophile. It’s not clear whether this incident started the attacks or it was part of the attacks).

A fascist, these days, is more of an insult to anyone holding a different belief and/or opinion rather than a description of a political ideology. This has probably trickled down from Mussolini’s politics that engendered a “superior us and inferior them” mentality. Essentially, anyone who is not like me is a moron, ergo a fascist.

Siegel’s gripe – as I understood it – is that the tool that should have given everyone an equal voice (i.e. the internet) has become a worldwide, and more vicious, version of playground bullying. What’s worse, the bullies have the option of remaining unknown. You can’t confront them and, bizarrely, if you cry foul you automatically become a censor because you are telling people what to say and what to think. Talk of turning the other cheek…

Also, most disturbing, is his claim that people are constantly trying to outdo each other on the insolence stakes. Invective sells blogs and fora (forums), apparently. Although I don’t have any statistics at hand, the idea makes intuitive sense to me. I see a similar downward spiral in the central theme of Golding’s Lord of the Flies, which culminates in the death of Piggy. Worryingly, a few blogs here (Malta, EU) are guilty of “blogofascism” too. I think that they do it just for kicks or – at worst – to be admired for their witty put downs. I don’t believe for a minute that they’re being malicious…

Everyone has a right to his or her opinion as long as it corresponds to mine

OOH … look at the time …

until next time.

Toodle-oo.

 

Simon & Garfunkel

Listening to them now. My favourite has to be The Dangling Conversation. Bleecker Street a photo-finish second.
The Dangling Conversation, for me, is a bit like discovering your father’s porn stash. Call me weird. The waves of euphoria crash against the scowling black rocks of disappointment.
“Cool! My father’s got porn!”
“Hang on … what’s he doing with porn? Does my mother know?”
“Look at the tits on that redhead. They can’t be real.”
“What was he thinking?!”
“How did she fit that there?”
And the ping-pong match goes on …
The song starts with a good – “sweet” – rhythm. It’s a still life water colour.
Hmmm. Honeyed.
I sit through the first few bars. Then there it goes cast in our indifference
How it jars. But the tune is still great. You can’t chuck a song just because of a small mistake.
So you keep listening as though you misunderstood.
And you read your Emily Dickinson and I my Robert Frost.
See? I told you we must have misunderstood something.
And we note our place with bookmarkers that measure what we’ve lost.
Oops. There we go again. And it’s downhill all the way. Till we reach the coup de grace: And I only kiss your shadow I cannot feel your hand, you’re a stranger
Now unto me
That’s cold. Murderous.
But the tune … enthralling.
A nice song about most people’s nightmare – a sham marriage (or relationship). What were they thinking?
*oh well*
Perhaps I’d be better off listening to Nelly thinking she’s like a bird …

Toodle-oo.