Quid Pro Quo With The Gods

Excitement

@Cheeniya

Hee ha! Hee ha! I am super excited today. I mean, supa-dupa excited. Ask me why?

Exciting things are happening in life. Supa-dupa-gupa excitement. Life is strange! Incredible. You think, so far is the best, nothing can supersede and then comes the supa-dupa-gupa excitement. I wonder, am I getting excited over nothing. But then getting excited over nothing and nonsense is how people like me to thrive. Supaa! Catchoo later.

 

Lolita

Lolita is exquisite in language. Lumpens who cringe at Lolita probably never read Lolita. If one had read Lolita, they would have noticed that Lolita is NOT infuriatingly obscene or replete with predatory advances. In fact , there's very little eroticism in Lolita. Today, by all standards, Lolita is no longer untouchable or even impugned for subversion of cultural mores. When anyone goes: "Lolita! Huff! Bad! Taboo!", the only question I ask them: "Did you read the book or have heard about the book". More than 90% answer: heard about the book. There you go!

 

Classic Movies

I watched Doctor Zhivago. Nice adaptation. And then, there's Julie Christie. JC in Far from the madding crowd or Dr Zhivago? Undoubtedly Zhiv! She was ravishing in the film.

Friend asked me: How should I bring up my kid?

I implore: Please let them watch movies, the obscure, the kindest, the greatest, the meanest, all kinds of movies from the yore. By the time they hit their 20s they will transform into cheerful adults with zippy leanings for having watched all these movies. She quipped that I am the only pudding head who turned out chirpy by watching television and films.

Now, you tell me, people complain so much about indignation and ennui and betrayal, the three common forms of hurt. My remedy for all forms of mental aberrations is gratuitous indulgence in films. It shapes you and alters your perception about life. Movies! But no one listens to me ...they thinking it is foolery.

Seriously, if people watched classic films, they will be less discontent in life and appreciate the broader unfolding of life.

 

Unreasonable excitement

My mom often moans that I get excited over everything, literally EVERYTHING.
Beti, lower your excitement is what she advises me.

I don't understand impassive people and their inability to excite away when they cook mundane omelette or boil dull milk. I mean, these are exciting moments! One such moment arrived in my life too when I upturned a biryani bowl. My mom would say: Everyone does that everyday. Eh? So what ..I did it too, that too with great anxiety and greater excitement. Should that not deserve a QPQ laurel. I know my mom would still tamp it down: You are getting excited over silly nothing.

 

Breaking wind

Joseph Black, Cavendish and Rutherford had investigated gases out of curiosity but no one made a living out of their gaseous indulgence. Then, in a book, I came across the vague reference of Joseph Pujol who used gases as his props for amusement. Mr Pujol with the stage name Le Pétomane was a sensation in 1890s with his mind-blowing, sorry, hind-blowing tricks. If farting is an art, then a flatulist is the artist who keeps this art afloat.

He was famous for his remarkable control of the abdominal muscles, which enabled him to seemingly fart at will. It is a common misconception that Joseph Pujol actually passed intestinal gas as part of his stage performance. Rather, Pujol was able to "inhale" or move air into his rectum and then control the release of that air with his anal sphincter muscles. Evidence of his ability to control those muscles was seen in the early accounts of demonstrations of his abilities to fellow soldiers. --wikipedia

So it is not farting after all but the controlled expulsion of air that sets our Pujol clean from the putrid outfall. I like such historical characters marked for their unusual skills.

 

The Red Shoes

Just finished watching The Red Shoes, another classic movie in 1948 from the Powell and Pressburger wellspring. Moira Shearer as the lead ballet dancer was breathtaking. Her agility and dance performance are fantastic. What an impressive performer!

 

Forest Finn

Another QPQ awardee! We spoke about Forest Gump but here's Forest Fenn who didn't run but made others run in search of treasure. He was rich, and what do rich people do? They indulge in preposterous ways to bequeath their amassed wealth. This man buried a chest of gold somewhere near the Rocky Mountains in USA and left a poem as a guide map for the intrepid treasure hunters. Get your shovel and gumboots Cheeniya, we are going on a treasure hunt. Here's the poem. I cannot make head or tail of the clues, can you?

 

Fame and Fickle

I find parenting ambitious and challenging. In general, when I observe friends who struggle to instill morality and other rhetorics into that spongy brain, I wonder, does the kid grasp or even benefit from the age-old moral indoctrination. When they come of age surely they can make out the proverbial "good" from the "evil" and other lofty aspects of being a human. For now, they need imagination and creativity and unstifled inquiry into the human condition.

A predominant human condition is our lust for fame. In school or college when our name is flashed with honour, we yearn to seal such commemoration. We wish to forever remain the most popular kid! But we have to realise that fame is fickle, the very public who acclaim us can denounce us because they are wont to fickle afflictions. Today they like you, tomorrow they will like someone else. Their fealty is mercurial. I dislike parables steeped in beat-up morality of the sacrosanct who are impassive to fame. I prefer jaunty tales of the underlings liberated from the angst and confusion in life through introspection and not lofty directives. They are my heroes! They chart out their own life with little or no intervention of conformity at large.

Here comes Blob: An Irreverent and Insightful Modern Fable About Beauty, Ugliness, the Paths to Acceptance, and How Admiration Hijacks Our Sense of Self



Blob is ugly but proud. Blob is driven but worried. He is fallible, yet correcting. I like such characters. Children need these un-heroic tales on simple introspection rather than fulminating and uninspiring moral tales. Give them the tools of inquiry rather than the prefabricated sermons.