On stuffing

Dear Gentle Reader,

The stuffing has been knocked out of your humble scribe.

Or rearranged.

I managed to pop a few of my ribs out of their cartilaginous supports--where they meet up with the other ribs.

Being in the position to compare this with breaking your ribs I can inform you that while neither is fun, this is marginally worse.

...How interesting that I wrote about opiates last week...

I will attempt 3WW tomorrow, because it is always quick. The hairy crabs, however, will have to wait their turn. Or maybe they are waiting for me...

'Till then, here is another shot of the first image, from farther back...

Click to hear 'Betty et Zorg', the introductory music from the movie '37.2° Le matin' by Gabriel Yared. This piece describes how I feel this week.

Amazon.com iTunes

Tschuess,

Chris

Scribe's back...

Dear Gentle Reader,

Yes.

It is true.

Your humble scribe's back.

Svelte and handsome, too. As seen above and here.

The rest of the body is tired, but, mostly, well.

Health is OKish, mind is fineish, and my hangover from a birthday bash the other day is mostly goneish.

All this means that your humble scribe has returned to a position where he is able to write, again. This would be a standing position followed by a seated position.

And, as your humble scribe has been gone so long, he has much to write about. He even has the energy to do the same.

Today, though, a quick overview.

You've seen the back....

Now, a side (instead of the more usual aside).

Before I bring us around to the front, though, and up to date, I must warn you all...

Somebody has to lose weight.

8 kilos (17.63 pounds) (!) were added across the length and breadth of Germany during a two week blur of cheese and chocolate excess.

Unfortunately, those 8 kilos were only added to your humble scribe's breadth; Germany's breadth and width remained unchanged, although cheese reserves were depleted.

Following this caloric cataclysm your humble scribe returned to Hong Kong with your Heroine.

The incredulous stares of Pommes, your Hero, should have alerted your humble scribe that something was wrong. But, no, ignorance and folly strode hand-in-hand together and the progress of the belly would continue unchecked.

For the following month your humble scribe lay (mostly supine, sometimes prone) and indulged in what seemed like insignificant quantities of chocolate and ice cream.

My feet, apparently, shrunk.

I thought they were shrinking because I saw less and less of them.

Then, I noticed that my belly had grown.

Slowly, I realized that something was wrong.

Finally, when health had returned to its former home with your humble scribe, your humble scribe went swimming in the shark-filled seas around Hong Kong.

And, whilst contentedly paddling around, I stopped, involuntarily, with sharp pains in my belly and a thrashing in the water around my legs and arms...

I had beached myself upon an unseen, upthrusting coral.

The thrashing was the pain-driven spasming of my arms and legs, jerking in surprise.

After slicing my hands by pushing myself off of the coral, and pulling my belly out of the coral, I looked like this...

Actually, this was me much later.

And, really, this was all done by a sessile coral.

Neither mobile Pommes, nor a Hong Kong shark, is to be blamed, even though both of those scenarios would have made a better story... or at least a less embarrassing story.

Being beached on coral is a bad way to realize that you have grown too large; those little coral polyps are vicious, both on their way in and on their way out.

After involuntary marine liposuction I knew that things had to change.

Fingers are gaining strength, as I return to blogging, and chocolate has been forsaken.

What else is new? Well I'll leave most things for another day and another post.

But, I was a bit startled to note that my itunes account has 46,015 resident tracks (we buy a lot of cds).

So, I thought, some music ought to be shared.

Today, I offer a sample of what your Heroine refers to as happy music...

Prince Nico Mbarga wrote and recorded one of Nigeria's most popular songs, Sweet Mother, back in 1976.

It soon became one of Africa's most popular songs, is West Africa's most popular song, to date, and we love it here in Hong Kong, too.

Sweet Mother is a infectious highlife piece.

Highlife music is a Ghanaian musical style from the beginning of the twentieth century with both leading horns and multiple leading guitars, which eventually spread throughout West Africa.

Sweet Mother also has elements of Cameroonian/Nigerian rhythms from the historic Igbo Kingdom as well as Congolese inspired guitar patterns.

When things get us down, we put Prince Nico on. I should have put this on two months ago.

Listen and know why we love Prince Nico Mbarga so very much. The lyrics of Sweet Mother are not the happiest, but the music teaches one to keep a sunny disposition no matter what is happening, and to focus on the now, rather than tomorrow.

If anything can make you feel good while your taut belly is straining at stitches to the rhythm of your heart, it is Prince Nico's music. Enjoy.

Click to hear Sweet Mother by Prince Nico Mbarga

Click here to buy the cd directly from Rounder Records, the publishing group that has been bringing Prince Nico Mbarga to those of us who live outside of Nigeria. Thank you, Rounder, I love your roster of artists.

Amazon.com iTunes

Tschuess,

Chris

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

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

Self portrait (two views after the last photo)

Dear Gentle Reader,

Apsu and Tiamat were the primordial (Babylonian) progenitors of the universe.

As Apsu said to his wife, Tiamat, in the Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma elish--when speaking of their children, the first pantheon of gods:

"Their ways are verily loathsome unto me. By day I find no relief, nor repose by night..."

And, therefore, the two progenitors set about to annihilate their progeny.

Genocide, which I have previously recounted the etymology of, is an old concept for mankind, even if it is a young word.

But, the twentieth century saw more than its fair share of genocides, such as the Cambodian genocide of the 1975-1979.

I did not intend to be gratuitous with my usage of the images of skulls and bound bones in last Friday's post.

I stand by that image; I do not believe it was gratuitous.

As individuals, and as members of various communities, we all have many perceptions of ourselves.

While we likely recognize some aspects of ourselves accurately, we do not always acknowledge other aspects.

In order to grow and to overcome various pasts, as people, as communities, as nations, and as world citizens, we need to embrace these pasts and not try to eradicate memory or awareness of them.

I am a firm believer that wishing things away does not make it so. However, the closing image of Friday's post was an ugly image for which I gave no warning.

Today, in response, one slice of a self-image:

THE MONSTER WITHIN...

(the one who can take pictures of loathsome things, I suppose...)

(...which would imply a potentially monstrous, post-Jekyllandhydian duality as both subject and photographer...)

Tschuess,

Chris