To life

Dear Gentle Reader,

I have returned to Hong Kong, but not yet to this e-world.

A brief e-glance at the e-mails e-piling up and e-spilling over is not a sufficient e-return, but, it will have to suffice until the end of October.

It appears, though, from my email inbox, that there has been some concern that my noggin might have been scooped clean in my absence from blogville.

Fear knot...

(An oblique R.D. Laing reference?) No, let me try again...

Feer nought...

(No, that could mean becoming a companion of nothing [feer is an archaic form of fere, from Middle English, which has one meaning of companion and companionship]... but this would convey the wrong idea...)

Rats. Maybe something did go wrong with the brain pan oil change.

Wait, I have it...

Fere not.

Perfect. My noggin [the implicit subject] has not fallen, or become anything else, like detached [the Middle English "feer" can also mean to fall by right, to become].

Harkening back to potential concerns about the potential scooping of my brain...

...It (my brain) was not (scooped clean).

It was sudsed and rinsed, with German beer, but that was medicinal... ...to keep those neural connections shiny.

So, all is well. And the beer in Northern Germany was terrific; after a few glasses my brain definitely felt shinier.

I have to write this post, you see, because some of the pictures of sliced sections of my brain, which I have previously posted, left some readers perplexed.

You were in good company.

A few doctors were perplexed, too.

But, no brain removal programme has been agreed to. Yet.

...At least, not that I remember...

Anyway, I haven't looked at blogs, and I will continue to hold off until the end of October when I officially return.

But, after perusing a few emails in the inbox, I decided that I ought to clarify my condition as some of my recent postings have been a bit ambiguous.

My ambiguity has been with reason, but there is no need to go into those reasons as the only thing that conclusively has been shown to be wrong with me has been (note the past tense of the verb) an overly fat wallet. Everything else is just a syndrome or a condition.

Fortunately, medical techniques have been shifting my fiscal burden into the experienced hands, and, presumably, safer wallets, of medical professionals.

Soon the fiscal alleviation protocols shall be complete and the proddings and noddings, dicings and slicings, prickings and stickings will, presumably, come to an end.

I will be grateful.

So, with that in mind, I look forward to returning to this space, and to many regular life spaces, with the zesty attitude of a hipster dancer rather than the slightly morose attitude that was beginning to afflict me.

So, long story short, all is (mostly) well, and I appreciate the comments of concern I have received, and I apologize for worrying you, if I did.

In conclusion, and returning to the opening image, I propose a toast...

לְחַיִים! (La'chaim!, or "To Life!")

Tschuess,

Chris

With love, Pommes

Dear Gentle Reader,

That silly humble scribe is off again.

What a whinger.

And, it looks like I will be looking after him while the Heroine is off at work.

That means no photos of me popping up, this time.

But, I figured I could leave you with a capacious shot of yours truly, to tuck into the cockles of your hearts and warm your dreams while you sleep.

Miao,

Pommes

3WW (CXLIII)

Dear Gentle Reader,

It's 3WW time, again.

Although I pulled the plug on blogging, for two months, just a few hours ago, I may stay current with 3WW, just because it usually makes me quite happy.

3WW I do just for me.

Current circumstances mean that not only will I not be posting much, besides 3WW, but, I know I will not be reading anything on the web until the end of October.

So, I apologize to all the fantastic 3WW (and other) posters--I will come visiting again in October when I can.

In the meantime, I consider this brain food, and my brain could use some, right about now.

This week (CXLIII) the words are glare, lustre, and threat.

Further, as usual, each haiku gets its very own American sentence title.

The roll call parade ground where boys, trained to kill, are sent to meet the same...

Men, mustered, blustered;

fear shone through their glaring eyes.

War's lustre dimmed fast.

Strutting onstage too old, too big, too out-of-rhythm; pole dancer fears...

The crowd glared, threatened

to boo, throw booze--the lustre

of young flesh had worn

She'd read too much Tolkien, that free spirit did not want the ring's burden...

His purchase... a threat,

that lustrous gold... servitude,

She glared, said no, left.

Tschuess,

Chris

To return to the Monday Poetry Train click here.

To return to 3WW click here.

Perspective and distance

Dear Gentle Reader,

With the title of today's post, one would expect a discussion of how the apparent size of objects seems to decrease the farther they are from the observer.

Further, it would make sense that a historical overview of Brunelleschi (1377-1446) has been indicated; especially Brunelleschi's seminal contribution to perspective in Western art.

Brunelleschi, after all, devised an apocryphal peep-hole camera to find, and replicate, vanishing points in his art.

By finding the vanishing point(s), and connecting the lines from the observer to that(those) vanishing point(s), Brunelleschi could work out how large objects could be, or, rather, how small they should become, to make their visual representation seem more realistic to the observer.

In a word, Brunelleschi developed perspective.

But, sadly, dear souls, that is not to be.

As René Magritte (1898-1967) famously said of his painting of a pipe, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" or "This is not a pipe".

However, this post does have to do with vanishing points and perspective.

Yesterday, I showed you some different perspectives of my interior, physical world.

One set of results that your humble scribe recently received indicated that your humble scribe would have to disappear. Again.

Probably until the end of October.

And then I should really and truly be back.

Or e-back.

Sorry. That is just the way that things go.

Nothing serious. Muchly.

And there is some lovely travel that has been planned, and will still be happening, but my results mean that I, again, have to spend a bit more self-time.

Who knew that a blogger would need even MORE self time?

Apparently I need to work on perspective, more.

Or vanish.

Anyway, hopefully I will see, or e-see, you all again.

If you don't return, then I will be bugging my eyes out to try to resolve your e-images.

And, believe me, me with bugged out eyes is not pretty....

Tschuess till the end of October 2009,

Chris

The interior world; the value of perspective

Dear Gentle Reader,

Who is this tiny brained man?

Certainly not the author?

No? Yes?

Say it ain't so...

Perspective is revealing for all of us, and not just the rein and rudder of painting, as Leonardo da Vinci, said.

(OK. Leonardo actually said "La prospettiva è la briglia e timone della pittura.")

(OK. Because when Leonardo wrote he used mirror writing [upside down and backwards], the actual quote looked even more different. Still...)

(...There is no need for my little-brained pedantry to continue, is there? As you can see from the introductory picture, your scribe is obviously small brained and focuses on the minutiae, the minutiae still being within his scope of thought...)

The slice of life that that you reveal to others, or yourself, shapes others' and your own perception of yourself.

Below, a visual representation of this idea as a magnetic resonance imaging machine slices my brain through various angles.

I'll only show four more images.

I promise.

(I have scads of these (hours of being a subject), but more would be too much, I fear.)

Self-Image No. 2 of 5

Note the bigger brain, but smooth interior. ...Please let that be corpus callosum...

Nice sclery eyes, too.

Self-Image No. 3 of 5

Pinocchio with a rear entry wound from a stray nail and Geppetto's mallet, perhaps?

Self-Image No. 4 of 5

Ah. The blind man.

Finally, a great big convoluted brain, but no eyes to gaze on the outside world.

Telling, no?

Self-Image No. 5 of 5

(The most dignified of the series, no?)

Finally, muscle tone both inside the skull, and resting upon it.

...Big hind brain, too... ...Obviously a man...

Bear in mind that all these shots are just a few millimetres from each other, and the last image is only a few degrees of perspective away from Mr. Little Brain of the opening image.

Perspective; not just a vanishing point, even if the media treats it that way.

Tschuess,

Chris