On books The idea of a North Korean book list is …humanizing. I've never mentally connected North Korea to anything as benign and civilizing as literature. Of course, I had no logical reason to assume they wouldn't possess the usual markers of a civilized society. Politics notwithstanding, they are an ancient culture with a proud history. Shows how the media can perpetuate prejudice by their skewed coverage. Nukes are to North Korea as rape is to India. Millions of people and entire cultures reduced to one-word stereotypes, just catchy enough to grab the fleeting Western attention span. Complexity and nuance don't catch eyeballs. Not pointing any fingers, I am just as guilty of falling for the easy narrative. The Youtube series is perfect. I've already started watching it though I plan to read the books as well. At present I am reading Yuval Noah Hariri's Sapiens (more on this in a later note). It's taken me longer than normal to get through, not because the book isn't good -- it is, but because I keep getting sidetracked by my kids' summer reading lists. This summer I have made a conscious effort to introduce them to traditional folklore from around the world. We've reread the Panchatantra and Jataka tales, enjoyed the exploits of Igal Shidad, a cowardly camel herder from Somalia, embarked on a Norwegian adventure with East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon, delved deep into Japanese folktales with 'Once upon a time in Japan' among others. The rainbow of emotions on their faces -- fascination, excitement, horror and glee -- have been a joy to watch, but what I've enjoyed most are the conversations the books engender. Summer is done and the kids are back in school but I plan to continue our story reading sessions as long as they will let me. I have a long list of books to get through. I'll gladly take recommendations if you have any. More on entreaties to the Tralfamadorians tomorrow! : )
On politics The times they lived in were o tempora! momentous. Putting the first man on moon, defusing the missile crisis, selling the repackaged capitalism showcased not only the calibre but also the charm of the leaders. When it comes to politics, one needs more charisma than calibre. Our petulant kiddo has none. Don't rush to buy that ticket. There aren't many orators who will tickle your grey anymore. There are no birds on unpinioned wings anymore. I think I posted a link or two of Hansard debates in the past. Even the new BBC documentaries are prefaced with quotations of politicians from the first half of the twentieth century. That does not mean we don't have any witty politicians anymore. But in this blink-and-miss world, the twitter altercations may percolate into public conscience with rapidity, but they also dissolve the next day. You don't have that crater-like impact of these speeches anymore. You might me tickled by one or two if you sweep thoroughly. That said, cast your gaze to MI5 archive. They publish inventive ploys which are counterparts to parliamentary repartees. Here is one for you: Doubled-crossed agent. He is remarkable because he is that rare birdie who won both the Iron Cross (Germany) and Order of the British Empire, MBE (UK) prestigious awards. There is a disclosure statute in UK where the identities of secret agents can be revealed if they themselves have published their exploits in public domain. I think our Mr Pujol wrote a book or something. So, his story is out there now.
On life hacks Seven seconds to shift the gear! Your undersigned used to be one such person who used to rev up her brain on whiff of foul conduct. I would chew my nails into powder ruminating if I had offended that microbe by not allowing it to comfyly settle on my rancid leftover. That was all in the past. 5-second rule of Mel Robbins is new to me. But the philosophy of agility has eluded me for ages. I, for one, am that Oblomov who would sit on the bed and no wilfulness can help me to clamber out of it. Ivan Goncharov sketched out the first fifty or so pages of the novel drawing out the langour of Oblomov who similarly sits on his bed daydreaming of all the things he is about to do. If Ivan had studied me, he would have padded extra fifty pages to that sluggish portrayal. When Brutus was insinuating that tide in the affairs of men, he should have mentioned that it lasts only for five seconds. Hehe! Brutus: There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures. Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3 5-second is not a forlorn idea or practice, as in, if you think about it, you would have come up with your patented bulb-halo with similar conclusion on how to combat procrastination. However, knowing that others have been in that very quagmire of indolence is assuring in itself, and when it is reinforced with proper tacks like "5-sec", it is very striking. Labelling something is job half-done. I like such constant and sharp reminders of forceful ideas and thoughts: things that one might have sussed out in theory but falter in practice. That 5-sec article is a kicker, atleast to someone like me. I need such timely shots in the arm to excise the Oblomov in me. Do share other life-hack articles you come across. They say, life is short, therefore, we need all the hacks to fit into it. I really like these "7-sec" and "5-sec" jabs. One more oblique hack for you. If you ever lose your trinkets in a flower bed, don't worry too much. Just plant few seeds and it might rise up nicely like this cinched carrot.
On politics Iraq was the cradle of civilization and now it is lost to hooligans. Today, NK is relegated to the role of a stroppy foe but I won't yet write it off as a land of loose firearms. I am also skeptical of contemporary "history" voiced from authoritative and respected channels because history is opinionated. It is fluid. It isn't mathematics where an axiom once proved is unassailable and can only be fine-tuned. History can be squished and swatted. Generally, historical narratives acquire the temperament of their times. We are sold the prominent bad and ugly of our detractors but rarely the benign or the erstwhile glory. I got a chance recently to riffle some of the works of Svetlana Alexievich. No serious reads but peripherals reviews and that sort of thing of an era that is largely vilified by the West. What happened after Perestroika is a recurring theme in her works. Nothing controversial but a humane narrative of the discordant voices and how they remained steadfast to moribund communism. It is so cliche when someone says 'two sides of the coin' but even in festering and stinky places something tugging will bleed. That's a nice compilation. Let me go through the folktales list and get back to you. Mr Harari is the millennial Jared Diamond. I have read his articles but not his books. He takes off in Homo Deus from where he left off in Homo Sapiens warning or prophesying futurist man's eventuality in scientific humanism and algorithms that control or upload our brains for who knows some Homo Invictus. There is convergence in the writings of Harari and Kurzweil and Bostrom whilst predicting man's inevitable fate in Homo incarnations.
On Immortality In continuation, these two articles caught my attention recently on bleeding drive to upload or clone or immortalize a human in not-so-quaint amber form. What are the ethical consequences of immortality technology? | Aeon Ideas If I teleport from Mars, does the original me get destroyed? | Aeon Ideas In the endnote, you will find a useful history of that thought experiment. A very similar sort of question was raised in 1775 by the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid, in a letter to Lord Kames referencing Joseph Priestley’s materialism: ‘whether when my brain has lost its original structure, and when some hundred years after the same materials are again fabricated so curiously as to become an intelligent being, whether, I say, that being will be me; or, if two or three such beings should be formed out of my brain, whether they will all be me’. I first encountered it, with the Martian setting, in the preface to the essay collection ‘The Mind’s I’ (1981), edited by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett. The British philosopher Derek Parfit made much hay out of the idea in his book ‘Reasons and Persons’ (1984). And the podcaster C G P Grey provides an insightful illustration of the problem in his video ‘The Trouble with Transporters’. While we leave out the propulsion nitty-gritty to be cracked by Elon Musk to land a man on Mars, we might want to mull on the ethical conundrum in bringing the Martian via a teleporter. Question: Would you press that button? How do the options play out? (1) Your clone and you momentarily share the space and time, your destruction is fired upon his creation, but you see him for a minute or so, and then you are destroyed. (2) Your clone is created upon your destruction, there is no overlap. (3) Your clone and you live in tandem in different planets. You perish in Mars. He lives out your live on Earth. I am doubtful if I can empathize with my own reconstruction. My alt-self may look and sense like me but would my consciousness still be integral in that transfer. It might, the trouble is that in own consciousness I deem it's existence as inalienable no matter how accurately it can be replicated.
On Covfefe A friend of mine once told me that Shakespeare invented many words in English. Our honcho may not be as blazing as Shakespeare but in his own right he is striving to be one. Do you covfefe that?
On East of the Sun and West of the Moon My turn to execute the five-sec life-hack. I would have procrastinated any reading for the weekend. But that East of the Sun and West of the Moon intrigued me. So I downloaded the book en-route from work. Beware! This might be a long précis and you will be exasperated of my reading habit and wonder if this is how I read children's books. Sadly, yess! First, there seems to more than one translation of this Norske Folkeeventtyr of Asbjørnsen and Moe. I picked up the translated work of Sir George Webbe Dasent. Second, bless you, rather kiss you, for introducing me to this funny book. I always wanted to read and contrast the folktales from other lands with our Indian tales. Folktales are great because they are charmingly uncouth. You can smack someone, you can slay someone and children don't feel it gory but delight at such triumphant tales. This Norwegian folklore is not edifying but fun. I don't know whether you and I have read the same edition but the one I read was amusing for below reasons. Partway reading the book, I suspected if I was the reading the right book because of Gaelic terms like “ell” (measure of length) , “crag” (cliff) , “lassie” (girl), “goody” (an elderly woman), “dame” (again, elderly woman), “brye” (cowshed), “brose” (porridge). Isn't this supposed to be a Norwegian folklore? Then I realised that because it was translated by the Englishman GW Dasent, he naturalized the locale to the English audience. “Troll" and the mythological “Lindworm” have their origins in Scandinavia. The collection is real fun. I liked the other ones more than the titular story. I particularly liked the unwritten common sense in “Prettiest children”. “A sportsman went out once into a wood to shoot, and he met a Snipe. “Dear friend,” said the Snipe, “don’t shoot my children!” “How shall I know your children?” asked the Sportsman. “What are they like?” “Oh!” said the Snipe, “mine are the prettiest children in all the wood.” “Very well,” said the Sportsman, “I’ll not shoot them; don’t be afraid.” But for all that, when he came back, there he had a whole string of young snipes in his hand which he had shot. “Oh, oh!” said the Snipe, “why did you shoot my children after all?” “What! these your children!” said the Sportsman; “why, I shot the ugliest I could find, that I did!” “Woe is me!” said the Snipe; “don’t you know that each one thinks his own children the prettiest in the world?” And the hilarious ending of “House husband” [title: The husband who was to mind the house] “And now the goody had waited seven lengths and seven breadths for her Husband to come and call them home to dinner; but never a call they had. At last she thought she’d waited long enough, and went home. But when she got there and saw the cow hanging in such an ugly place, she ran up and cut the rope in two with her scythe. But, as she did this, down came her Husband out of the chimney; and so, when his old dame came inside the kitchen, there she found him standing on his head in the porridge pot.” And “Halvor! Halvor!” [title: cat on the dovrefell] I am sparse with 'thank you' just as I am with emojis. What am I to do when you introduce me to such yummy folktales? Tell me. Well, I am supposed to reciprocate with a befitting enthusiasm taking cue from your five-sec rule and to write back a review forthwith. The tales are cunning, hilarious and also upright, the reason I love chirpy folktakes to staid parables. Again, there are several variations and editions of the said book. Notwithstanding, your taste in children's books is the finest.
On National Bad Poetry Day The impending total solar eclipse has overshadowed other news. But we cannot miss the celebrations for National Bad Poetry Day. What do we have this year? Very pertinent - emoji poetry. With that I am convinced that I need more emojis in my already lengthy chatter. A refresher here is a must to look back at the worse or shall we call the best performers in this category And what better way to start than to honor a man many consider to be the worst poet in history, the Scotsman William Topaz McGonagall (whom I’ve written about before). His torturous verse led one critic to rave, “he was so giftedly bad that he backed unwittingly into genius,” a statement that seems to have some truth in it — McGonagall’s only book, Poetic Gems, has sold for thousands of dollars at auction. Here’s a delectably awful sample from his poem “The Sprig of Moss”: Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the 17th Century, was another historically terrible poet. The diarist Samuel Pepys summed her up as “mad, conceited and ridiculous,” and judging from her poem “What is Liquid?,” we could add “not scientifically or artistically gifted” to that list. All that doth flow we cannot liquid name Or else would fire and water be the same; But that is liquid which is moist and wet Fire that property can never get. Then ‘tis not cold that doth the fire put out But ‘tis the wet that makes it die, no doubt. She should have aspired to write organic chemistry textbooks. More references in the linked article.
On escape from Terra Prime Continental Europeans! So smug with their educated leaders and people-oriented laws. Bah! Where's their sense of adventure? What is life without the ignominy of an inexorable arse representing you on the world stage; without the climate change denying senators and bible thumping congresssmen? Being an American these days is like being on a brake-free roller coaster hurtling into the abyss at breakneck speed. With our good old American 'can do' spirit we will race everyone to our ultimate oblivion, and what's more, it will be richly deserved. This summer I spent a few weeks in Munich. One morning I met an Afghani Uber driver who upon discovering where I lived, chuckled and pronounced with a flourish, "Trumpf! Amreeka Khatam!" I managed a grin and a shrug to hide my mortification. What can you say to a guy whose country your military bombed into the stone age? Had to let the guy have his moment, besides he did have a fair point. -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- Secret cable 214: Operation 'Escape Terra Prime' The Tralfamadorian Department of Intergalactic Communications has issued 'forward to spam with extreme malice' and 'do not reply upon pain of transmogrification' notices for our abduction entreaties. Owing to their four-dimensional perception, they have an unobscured view of our tomfoolery, past, present and future. "So it goes but for these two" is the amended maxim of the one-eyed, plunger people. My source was mumbling something something about a 'civilizational threat'? Escape from earth seems improbable. Further instructions awaited.
On escape from Terra Prime We are pooped up now from our primeval English and French wars. Our sense of adventure these days is in watching Little George riding a horse and Little Charlotte practising her ballet. What a frightful call of that ultimate oblivion! During the German blitzkrieg, people huddled underground (Tube transit system). Now, if you Yankees and Koreans exchange 'friendly military' fireworks, where shalt we hide? We cannot hide anymore underground. Mobile network kahan milta? You mean, our 213 pleas were rejected? Didn't our neurite badge work its magic this time? I assumed the "neurite" membership would open its door to every Galactic civilization to whom we imported our Ferrari cars and Ferragamo shoes. Our abduction entreaties cannot be trampled in this manner. If they forward it to spam, we shall beef up our resolve and hack into their Twitter accounts and unleash mayhem. They have no clue how the diabolical mind of the "but for these two" works. Those Tralfamadorian might have four-dimensional prescience on our antics but we will fire our digital weaponry from singularity where their time and space collapse into a squished jelly. Don't lose heart. I am in talks with the heptapods. Asylum seekers are in wont these days in the galaxy. We shall lure them into accepting us into their planet by promising to publish our narrative as a never-before-seen book titled "Ghastly Flight Of Two Ninja Neurites". With such proposed catchy title and projected sales from immigrant literature, no capitalist planet can deny our entry. Yes, yes, so it goes.