1. Have an Interesting Snippet to Share : Click Here
    Dismiss Notice

Quid Pro Quo With The Gods

Discussion in 'Cheeniya's Senile Ramblings' started by Cheeniya, May 20, 2017.

  1. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    12,626
    Likes Received:
    16,903
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    @Novalis
    1389 Debates and Spats
    I tend to get bored with debates. Spats especially between a husband and wife interest me a lot more. There is more life in it even if it ends in murder!
    [​IMG]
     
    Thyagarajan and Afresh like this.
  2. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    12,626
    Likes Received:
    16,903
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    @Novalis
    1390 Earth and beyond
    I am truly sorry about this long gap in responding to your posts. It is not that I have been too busy but I was just tongue-tied by your responses like the one under reference. The formation of the Universe following the Big Bang and its ever-continuing sequence never fail to fascinate me. This is a subject that keeps a lot of minds active. Hindus believe that the Big Bang was caused by the primordial sound of Om. Stephan Hawking never failed to amaze me with his study of Cosmos. A small headache worries me to the core but here was a man who had his mind turned on the Cosmos all the time and not worrying about his dreadful Motor Neurone Disease.
    Why are you restricting it to the tiny Solar System?
     
    Thyagarajan likes this.
  3. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    12,626
    Likes Received:
    16,903
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    @Novalis
    1391 Diogenes
    I often wonder if there is any modern version of Diogenes. There are any number of guys who are scantily attired and living in similar dwellings but intellectually far below our hero. The last cynic that I can recall is Richard Nixon. When he was shown the door, he said "Just think how much you're gonna be missing. You don't have Nixon to kick around any more."
     
    Thyagarajan likes this.
  4. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    12,626
    Likes Received:
    16,903
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    @Novalis
    1392 On Dictionaries
    I have read somewhere that about 3,000 words will cover 95% of everyday writing. Out of those 3000 words, only the first 1,000 words are used in 89% . The Oxford Dictionary has over 1,70,000 words and over 20% of these are obsolete. A guy collected these obsolete words and gave each of them a new meaning. Thanks to my bird brain, I am unable to recall the name of the book. It was a great one.
     
    Thyagarajan likes this.
  5. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    12,626
    Likes Received:
    16,903
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    @Novalis
    1393 Good old songs
    Talking of Istanbul, I am reminded of Harry Belafonte's Coconut Woman
    A lady tell me the other day
    No one can take her sweet man away
    I ask her what was the mystery
    She say coconut water and rice curry
    You can cook it in a pot, four for five
    You can serve it very hot, four for five
    Coco got a lotta iron, four for five
    Make you strong like a lion, four for five
     
  6. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    12,626
    Likes Received:
    16,903
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    @Novalis
    You remind me of Maria's
    'To laugh like a brook
    When it trips and falls
    Over stones on its way'!
    Like Harry Belafonte and his Island in the Sun.
    I can't say that. I have come to know of him from you!
    What is madness if it cannot be exchanged?
     
  7. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    12,626
    Likes Received:
    16,903
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    @Novalis
    1396 Our Planets
    Tonight we'll witness total lunar eclipse here which will last for nearly four hours. Decades of belief about eclipses have tuned me to observe the rituals to be followed during eclipse. All the Temples including the great Tirupati will be closed during the eclipse. You know why? Because we believe that Raghu and Kethu swallow the planets! My planetary system still include the moon, Raghu and Kethu. You will be amazed by the number of people who abstain from eating anything during eclipse.
    Nice names! I'll tell you something. Our Professor of Astronomy during my Post Graduation would take leave on Eclipse days to follow the ancient rituals. Habits die hard you know!
     
  8. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    12,626
    Likes Received:
    16,903
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    @Novalis
    1397 Relativity
    Talking of cosmic songs, let me take you to the world of Limericks and give you a limerick on the Theory of Relativity.
    This limerick on the Einstein theory was composed by the Bishop of Chelmsford:

    There was a young lady named Bright,
    Who would travel much faster than light,
    She started one day
    In a relative way
    And came back the previous night.
     
    Thyagarajan likes this.
  9. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    12,626
    Likes Received:
    16,903
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    @Novalis
    1398 Unpleasant Reviews
    There was a well-known Tamil Writer decades back by name Kalki. He was, besides being a great Novelist, a harsh film reviewer too. Many bought his weekly to read his reviews.
    Roger Ebert is an English movie reviewer who could be devastatingly harsh. A sample review taken from Wiki:
    "Caligula is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful: People with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty. Disgusted and unspeakably depressed, I walked out of the film after two hours of its 170-minute length."
     
    Thyagarajan likes this.
  10. Novalis

    Novalis Gold IL'ite

    Messages:
    487
    Likes Received:
    943
    Trophy Points:
    173
    Gender:
    Female
    Roger Ebert is brutal and scathing, must have lacerated every artistic muscle of the director, pounded a bone, just with that invective! These critics wield a pen like a jackhammer, boring into and eviscerating any shadow of prosperity in the artist.

    But you might also be interested in another form of criticism, softer, wittier in dismissal,

    The novel "Goodbye to Berlin" was adapted into a Broadway play called I Am a Camera by John Van Druten (1951). It was a personal success for Julie Harris as the insouciant Sally Bowles, winning her the first of her five Tony Awards for Best Leading Actress in a play, although it earned the infamous review by Walter Kerr, "Me no Leica."

    Did you see that? Not a jackhammer but a bodkin of sharp criticism, a prick, but so effective and memorable. Leica Camera is a German company that manufactures cameras, lenses, binoculars, rifle scopes, microscopes and ophthalmic lenses.

    Me no Leica of the "I am a Camera" film.

    The ingenuity in humor is demonstrated at times in these critical feats.
     

Share This Page