A Little History Of Discovery

Ho hey! How have you been? Still in one trunk and one head but with drooping spruce covering up that rattling head. Good, you need no Schopenhauer in that protective and floppy armament to shield away the irascible and illogical. I logged in to post and threw myself back on seeing the alerts.

I usually turn off all my notifications but since the id is mint-new I haven't restricted the settings yet.

Lady, usually people squeal away some delightful 'you made my day/week' or 'I bow' or 'I bow to your magnanimity" but I am warning you ...jeez don't give this frothy recluse a cardiac arrest. Alerts, I have never seen the count or its likes in ages. I cannot even recall how alerts look like, but it is sweetly nostalgic to experience someone liking my wall-eyed post.

If anyone troubles you with their unreasonable argument, give them my name, The Ouroborus. If the fearful name doesn't scare them, my bluster on how to engage in public arguments should. That fails, I will pluck a spindly leaf from your overbearing rigout and flash peace before they complain of my obnoxious and chatty English.

Hoy, nice to see you wander in my gothic corner. For some reason, you linger in my mind every time I hear the Bollywood song 'Saree Ka Fall Sa', which I often dance to in my wild awakenings.

Psst: Thanks for the alerts. You are notoriously sweet.

 

5: How to Create the Perfect Wife

They say, truth is stranger than fiction. One such benevolent truth involves the molding of a perfect wife by Thomas Day, in his matrimonial quest, when he adopted two orphan girls aged 11 and 12 years to train them as coy damsels in his plans to marry one of them. Why court a grownup and ascertain compatibility when you can nurture a congenial woman to your whims. That's exactly what Thomas Day set forth to execute as part of his "Perfect Wife" undertaking. Thomas Day, in collusion with his friend John Bicknell, adopted the girls Sabrina Sidney and Lucretia to stylize a bride out of their impressionable pubescence. His undertaking failed miserably as he was unable to coax the mannerism of a perfect bride from any of them. He disowned them both as potential brides.You would think, it is the end. But the twist to this strange tale is that John Bicknell, the friend, eventually fell in love with Sabrina and revealed to her the truth about the sly foster care and went on to marry her later.

Is this fantasy or truth? Truth, and nothing but the truth captured in popular fiction in Wendy Moore's book.



I have not read the book but read about the book in an article. Later, verified the story.

What happened to Sabrina? After she had married John Bicknell, she had a reasonably illustrious life with her involvement in local schools. And Lucretia? I don't know.

The prospects of engineering a wife to desirability may have tanked but what about the prospects of engineering a genius through hot-housing from birth? Next post, John Stuart Mill and his zealous father James and his friend, Jeremy Bentham, in their prodigious ambition on "how to create the perfect genius".

 

Interlude: Which fictional couple does your relationship resemble?

"Adi, this is incredible. I made five pertinent posts. A milestone."

"Before ten posts you will lose interest and then drift to other whimsical novelties and lose interest and drift to other exciting ventures."

"But did I lose interest in you?", she glowered.

"It intrigues me that you have still not lost interest in this boring creature. A matter of time ..ain't? Why so?"

Poorni tugs her chin in a thinker's pose. "Do you know which fictional couple do we resemble?"

"I dare cite someone and then upset you and then ignite you and then be gored by your horns. Why don't you do the honors of such revelation and save the infernal wrath." Adi smiled.

"You are the Mr Knightley to this Emma. You spot the error of my ways which I resist then argue then finally concede to your better judgement. Do you ever wonder what I like in you? When a woman's Maslow Needs are being taken care of and she is on that qui vive for a man, then she falls for someone who challenges her more than serenades her. She will run away from any man who panders to her but is attracted to that tsk tsk man who grudgingly accepts to reform and fix her. You are that man to me. You motivate me to become a better person. I aspire to be you some day."

"Ah, I see, this gentlemanly Knightley is entrusted with reforming the waif."

"I am glad to have you in my life."

"And I am glad that you are that spoiled Emma with crazy, idiotic, and wild, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly enough years in the world with very little to distress or vex but much to reform in you in the capacity of your qui vive winner."

 

Interlude: You are what you read

"Poorni, you have a cheerful existence. You dance like a frog, sing like a prairie dog, yet none bothers you, and you falsely believe that you are the most awesome jellyfish on the planet. With this dotty disposition, why write solitary in public? Why cannot you just scratch in your personal diary?"

"Adi, I have to ever remind you of my flashback. I had people in my life who held those beacons aflame and drew me ashore when I was drifting in the eddies of confusion on how to read and what to read"

"Poorni, you are not writing a blog but talking to me so cut down on that poetic enactment."

"OK. Remember long ago I asked you if you believed in God and you refrained from answering it squarely and told that you cannot discuss God with anyone who has not read Joyful Wisdom/The Gay Science and Sapiens and A History of God, and has no clue about the origin of the Christian doctrine of salvation by works and the salvation by faith and predestination, and the Edicts and the Protestant Reformation and Jewish History and the Buddhist Teachings and the Vedic Period and the books of Sagan or Bakunin and you mouthed so many names and works that I hardly could identify that day. I never heard of that Russian Bakunin. You mentioned that rather than patronizing me with platitudes you would rather find me with these books and then I am to inquire again in due time. Once I have familiarized with these thinkers and events and conflicts then you would answer my query. Later, I never inquired again because I found the answer."

"So, what is your roundabout conclusion."

"I had you. I had others. I had people writing incisive on the margins of vague and rhetoric confrontations. I found that marginal crowd. Similarly, I leave these breadcrumbs not knowing who is sincerely tuned to learn and discover the proper approach to study accredited literature around us. You won't believe how rudderless I was back then. I didn't even know Flann O'Brien or JP Donleavy."

"Damn! I coached you into this then? I regret it now. I should have told that God wanted woman to pray ceaselessly for the long life of their partners."

"Now would you let me read The Second Sex as I am supposed to write a report on it."

"Tsk tsk ..you are too old to read these books which you should have read in your teens. But then, late bloomers who grew up reading hack writers compose very steamy and racy fiction of flirtatious couples who ..."

(thud)

 

I love all these shockheaded dudes who have gone mad or had written incredibly mad stuff in their delirium tremens. Nietzsche reformed me! When I read his theory of slave morality I was liberated from the trite and glorified illusion of human salvation.

I still say, he must be read to diaper-heaving tots to awaken bolted and original thinking in those gummy heads.

Tell you, I was thinking about you precisely 3 days, 11 hours and 4 minutes ago while watching "Dr Strange" movie.

Why?

I am usually weak in spotting easter eggs and bloopers in films. I read about them later only to wonder why I could not spot even one concealed trivia from any scene during the viewing.

But that 3-11-4 minutes ago, while watching Dr Strange, I noticed that Stan Lee appeared as a commuter in a cameo reading Aldous Huxley's "Doors of Perception". Stan Lee is the creator of the Marvel super-hero Dr Strange. And he is reading one of your recommended books. I did a little whoopee-doo-da somersault in my mind. I spotted an Easter Egg way before Christmas.



Moments like this thrust me into Nietzsche's madness of having discovered something that everyone might already discern on first glance but I too know now on intense reflection.

Aaah! I am so thrilled to hear these titles. I had read "The Story of Mankind" and loved it back then though I don't recall much now. This book must also be prescribed in kindergarten to replace dull rhymes for its smart rendition of history in an impressive layout.

 

I must check Melpomenus's fate.

On uncommon sense of humour, did you ever read Terry Pratchett. In the past I tried to read his works and abandoned for various reasons. Recently, I revisited his works and fell in love with his ridiculous, mordant, unforgiving sense of humour to tickle you till you choke. Last night I read his "The Fifth Elephant". Its just punitive fun, because you cannot put the book aside without reading it in one swoop. Enslaved burden! You cannot resist the temptation to flip another page till you have swung the entire book. You must check him! He is our type. You may ask, who is our type. You know, know-know, those types who write stuff that gladdens us that we went to nursery and learnt the letters just to read such quixotic books.

 

That's it?! I am annoyed with such open-ended forwards in which the fate of the ménage à trois is not revealed and left to the frightening imagination of the reader. Did Mrs Lamb hit Mr Lamb with the nearby right-handed golf club? Then he was rushed into ER and bore three stitches to close up the gaping injury. Thereafter he only sought right-handed mistress. Or, did Mr Lamb cleverly handle the cornered situation through his witty deception and continued his affair with Miss Left-handed. What happened? Did Miss Left-handed enter the house at the very moment and pretended to be right-handed on perceiving the suspicion? Or, her boyfriend or husband is secretly in love with Mrs Lamb surpassing the trois antics. This is nail-biting suspense in the Lamb narrative. I need valium to calm me down of the anxiety.

 

You have always been my simpatico in wallowing about books that you and I are reading now but Jeeves (ref: PG Wodehouse) had read them all when he was in the womb. Thus, he became the only gentleman with the rightful snark. You at least knew about Gamow while you were in college but all the books I mouth around have been read by me only in the past five years including this Infinity book. I didn't finish the book though. The book is in 'reading' zone, forever. I realized that my 'pending' and 'reading' list is disproportionate to my 'read' list. For every book I manage to read, I would have added ten more books likely to drag into my afterlife.

Back to simpatico, do you ever wonder what kind of avocation would suit you and I had we been born a little earlier. No guess, read further.

When I was wandering in the Uffizi Gallery few years ago, I noticed that most of the frames were built by a dude called Battista Botticelli.

The hoisted painting on the wall read

1. Art by : <>
2. Frame by: <>

The 'frame by' invariably happened to be that intriguing Mr Battu. I whipped my phone and searched for his biography. Zilch! There was no intel on this guy who had carved aesthetic frames.

Few days ago, I visited another art gallery in the city. Behold the frame!



Do you notice the intricate composition and thoughtful engravings on the frame. Oddly, this time there was no name of the framer. Uffizi honoured Mr Battu as a second fiddle in the artwork but my local museum disregarded the artisan behind the frame. Vasari had composed a monumental work on the lives of the artists of his time. If you and I were born in the Renaissance era, the befitting job for us both would be to honour the uncredited framers by writing a book about them. We could go around ferreting the details of these forgotten men. How does that detection work for you, interested, eh?