Zuihitsu

(...)

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » June 15th, 2020, 11:56 am

I hear a mourning dove while walking past the Stevens' house, and ready the Tascam for a capture; but a phoebe and a robin are engaged in a shouting match over territory or food or perhaps just to see who is loudest; so I power the recorder down and put it back into its carrying case. Another time, perhaps.

I reach the lake. The breeze carries echoes from the north shore to me, standing on the south: the scrape of a canoe on the boatramp pavement... two men discussing it, their voices heard but blurred into illegibility by the wind... somewhere a radio, somewhere else a Skil-saw... and at my feet, water slaps gently upon the stones. I consider capturing the moment in audio, but decide to let the moment go free to slip away unfettered.

The flattened corpse of a young milk snake lies plastered to the road. I regret not encountering it in time to move it safety. I haven't seen a living one in years. That they occasionally become roadkill assures me, at least, that they are still about.

I have, however, rescued several efts and turtles from their fiercest natural predator, the automobile.

I like bumblebees, too. And soldier beetles. And little jumping spiders. Apex primates - not so much.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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stilltrucking
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by stilltrucking » June 15th, 2020, 12:23 pm

humans are not proud of their ancestors and seldom invite them over for tea
—DNA

big sad apes with keyboardS
my Rose of San Antone was more into Engelbert Humperdinck and Mario Lanza
cobblestone streets where dino and I walked when we were kids back in baltimore a generation apart.
I still dream about those streets,
Texas got the biggest gotdamn bugs I ever seen, this is a screenshot of one on my 32" monitor
grasshopper.JPG
that bug is a good four inches long,

SUM SU'MM SUMMERTIME
AND THE LIVING IS EASY
so too the dying
the world so beautiful to see from the seat of my bike.
I take a rest break at a country churchyard
on a bench facing a family plot, husband and wife, his grave occupied hers still vacant
life lived fully
life a bowl of cherries on the
the narrow road to inwardness

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » June 15th, 2020, 3:00 pm

That's some critter crawling up your screen

In not too many weeks we'll have the daddy-longlegs - aka, harvestmen. I like them, too - proof (along with the common toad) that if there's a divine Creator, (s)he has a sense of humor. A typical harvestman looks like six 3" spindly hairbrush bristles sprouting out of a lentil. I don't know how they get into the house, but they do. I'll find them sitting on top of my computer, behind the monitor, in the kitchen drying rack, on my bedstand, in the bathtub. I can't bring myself to kill them, so I grab them by a leg where it attaches to the body - there's no joint there - and escort them to the entry. Or, in their case, the Exit. Out you go....
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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stilltrucking
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by stilltrucking » June 16th, 2020, 10:52 pm

in not too many weeks I hope I am still alive
I read too much fake news
I am now a dot on some big data map of covid19 contacts
someday I am going to google your avatar
statistical realities
thumb my nose to the science of medicine
Fortuna wheel is how I feel
chances are tumbling dice time and chance
I can't imagine that's my problem
The Believer B. Carpenter
RWS_Tarot_00_Fool.jpg
...wicki

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gypsyjoker
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by gypsyjoker » June 16th, 2020, 11:47 pm

plucking notes
The Evacuation of Corinth during the war between the states
I hope 80 is the new 40
and life is just beginning for me
Free Rice
Avatar Courtesy of the Baron de Hirsch Fund

'Blessed is he who was not born, Or he, who having been born, has died. But as for us who live, woe unto us, Because we see the afflictions of Zion, And what has befallen Jerusalem." Pseudepigrapha

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » June 17th, 2020, 7:47 am

stilltrucking wrote:
June 16th, 2020, 10:52 pm

...someday I am going to google your avatar...
Euler's Identity - considered by some to be the the most beautiful equation in mathematcis. It ties together in a surprisingly elegant and compact form three of the most important fundamental constants: e (which dominates proportional growth), i (the square root of -2), and pi (which should need no introduction).



Noshed on new hemlock tips during my afternoon hike yesterday. They have an agreeable flavor that remindss me of oregano, but it's strong. I was burping up oregano for hours afterwards. I also tried spruce tips - they were a bit past their peak, tough & fibrous, but with a surprisingly different pleasant citrus flavor. Balsam looks a lot like hemlock, but their tips were nasty & bitter.

I wonder if I'll ever get my hair cut again? Maybe I'll just let it grow and tie it back in a pony tail to keep it out of my eyes.

Last night I dreamed that I fell asleep.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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stilltrucking
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by stilltrucking » June 17th, 2020, 8:02 am

yes it is pretty arcane to me 8)

never yet got my mind around the square root of negative 1
imagine Trump has no fear
summertime women on my mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgtKk38xi0g
Last edited by stilltrucking on June 20th, 2020, 10:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » June 17th, 2020, 9:23 am

-1... oops, thanks for catching that - should wear my glasses when I type

I've recently been introduced to a matrix notation analogous to complex variables, and yields the same results. The so-called J-matrix, when multiplied by itself, gives the negative identity matrix, therefore plays the same role as the square root of -1, and is much less counterintuitive. But when it gets into the issue of what it means to raise a number (or a matrix) to the power of a matrix, I've had enough, and go watch YouTube videos of baby elephants, instead.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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the mingo
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by the mingo » June 19th, 2020, 9:45 am

You guys ... fuck the what?
Doll, you may have found a place of rest but I'm still on the trail.

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » June 19th, 2020, 1:37 pm

A positive number times a postive number = a positive number. (A video of a man walking down the street, when played forward, shows a man walking down the street.)

A positive number times a negative number = a negative number. (The same video played backwards shows a man walking backwards down the street.)

A negative number times a negative number = a POSITIVE number. (A video of a man walking backwards down the street, when played backwards, shows a man walking FORWARD down the street.)

The square root of any number A is that value which, when multiplied by itself, returns the number A.

SO - what number, when multiplied by itself gives you -1?
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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stilltrucking
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by stilltrucking » June 19th, 2020, 2:32 pm

You guys ... fuck the what?

I think Sasha missed my point.

spooky rain
like a 15 second deluge
but the rain evaporates in south texas atmosphere before it hits the ground
I wish I could write that weather report as a haiku.

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » June 19th, 2020, 3:51 pm

stilltrucking wrote:
June 19th, 2020, 2:32 pm

I think Sasha missed my point.
maybe... I was replying to mingo, shoulda used the quote thingie. But I could have missed your point. Hard to tell without body language, & even then I sometimes have a hard time.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » June 19th, 2020, 4:12 pm

 
VOLATILITY: when the stock market oscillates wildly up and down, with daily excursions of hundreds of points in either direction...

...or when a day gets off to a crappy start and then reverses direction so quickly it gives you whiplash...

I was putting the supper dishes away this morning after they'd spent the night in the drying rack. I was raising the casserole dish overhead to put it on the upper shelf when its glass lid slid off, hitting me in the face, continuing down to the toaster oven where it sheared off the door handle, then exploding into a thousand pieces of shrapnel on the counter, the floor, the sink, and the rest of the dishes in the drying rack.

Fuck. I hadn't even made the coffee yet. I wasn't even dressed.

Not how I'd planned on starting the day.

A little later, an email arrived - notifying me that a short story I'd written has been selected for publication in an anthology of works by local authors. Totally out of the blue - when I'd submitted it, I was told the successful entrants would be notified no later than the 15th. When I hadn't heard back by last Friday, nor the following Monday (the 15th), nor Tuesday, nor Wednesday, nor Thursday, I just assumed Oh Well, I guess I just didn't make the cut. A little disappointing, but hardly devastating.

But yeah, I'm getting published. I'm still a little dazed, and not just because I got bonked on the head by Pyrex baking dish cover.

 
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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stilltrucking
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by stilltrucking » June 19th, 2020, 4:47 pm

maybe I missed your point, I was thinking about a bit about √(−1) ... from a J.D Salinger short stgory.


I had a morning like that about 40 years ago, wound up hanging upside down by my foot pined between a telephone pole and a semitractor
congratulations on the story 8)
Things that are arcane even to Field's Medalists are cheating.
https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/ ... per_youve/

Muses exsist
to please us
with nothing
but their shadows

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » June 21st, 2020, 1:15 pm

Sunlight glimmers off a spider's drag line between my mailbox and the tree to which it is attached, like some kind of gossamer guy wire.

I sit outside working the Sunday crossword. I'd prefer to be naked, but 1) I can be seen from the road, 2) the deer flies have begun biting, and 3) my butt-sweat would adhere me to the plastic chair. I settle for cargo shorts and shirtless. By the way, just what the hell is a "sweetsop"? Or a "brume"?

I had to put four new tires on the car this week. Why should the car get first dibs on new shoes, and not me?

A pileated woodpecker just swooped in from the woods and landed on the trunk of the white birch just outside my window! I'd like to crack the window open to get a recording in case he squawks, but it creaks whenever I do and I'd just scare him off. And there he goes anyway...
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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