From now, Aasvogel, The Shaved Gorilla Liberation Front, That Bastard Who Totalled my Suzuki Swift and The Illustrious Cast of Eat Lard will be performing for your entertainment at http://eatlard.wordpress.com see you all there. Be sure to tip your waiter.
Harean
Friday, June 13, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Snag List Item #22,339, or (to Paraphrase Axel Rose), “What’s so civil about engineering, anyway?”
‘It is said, that statistically speaking, an infinite number of monkeys in a room messing about with typewriters would result in one having written Hamlet. What is often overlooked is, that you get one copy of Hamlet AND a room with an infinite quantity of monkey poo.’ – Aasvogel - Masturbations Vol. III.
1. First rule of Fluid Dynamics – NEVER talk about Fluid Dynamics.
2. Second Rule of Fluid Dynamics – Water flows downhill, for fucks sake…
3. Third Rule of Fluid Dynamics – Ignore Rules #1 and #2.
[Reader warning: much invective to follow]
It was a simple enough instruction to Sarath - Baas (Baas-Unnehi: an honorific for skilled workmen/artisan and therefore meaningless in the current context) and his whoop of liberated simians, whom I have mentioned previously, strategically shaved themselves so as to pass as construction workers of the homo sapiens kind. This in order to take on the job of building my pièce de résistance , the natural granite terrace that would effectively double that square area of the house, that was not garden. This was meant to be a long awaited marriage of The Aesthetic and The Practical. Finally after much tears, pressure and glaring silences, someone was to make an honest woman of The Aesthetic. I could talk the angles of approach I had in mind, of how the eye was to be drawn through the house out to the scene behind, of how the living space of the house was to not only be the square area contained within the walls, but that which was around it. My plans would routinely expand for this space. We could eat breakfast on it, jazz bands would throw gigs on it, we could lie on mats and watch shooting stars on it! This damned terrace would be the theatre that I would act MY LIFE on. I was going to notch up as many verbs as I legally could, right here, on the roughly cut granite of POTENTIAL.
Enter my construction workers and the MASONS from HELL. They confidently assure me that what I am desperately trying to explain the significance of, is a rather simple job which they have already done successfully for a recently satisfied client. So I should calm down. I am not swayed by their confidence on my project. I point out, that, philosophically speaking, Beauty, like Truth, lends existential purpose to itself, and my terrace would only serve its purpose by looking fabulous. That Nature abhors an ugly terrace; that there are circles of hell Dante carefully omitted to describe; where builders of such monstrosities would be forever rebuilding the same damn terrace over and over again while demons prod them with their fiery penises. And laugh at the tiny genitals of their charges. Genitals which stare out from the inside of small glass jars on tacky IKEA pinewood racks.
I walk them though the angles of the house pointing out that I want the stones laid in straight lines so that, see here, someone entering has their eye lead by the stones, which must be laid straight, OK? I go on to tell him of the man in Kandy, who in exchange for a small fortune is having has family gnaw the edges of the very stones we will be laying, till they are perfectly straight. Got it?
I move on with the requirements for proposal: Leave a slope away from the house when you build it, I said. Let it slope 4-6 inches across the 8 feet of it. Let the rain flow away from my house rather than collect in pools in it. This terrace is important. Every stone costs me money I haven’t even started earning yet and the peace of mind I have become accustomed to living without.
The lead Gorilla nods. Explains to me with the maximum of his newly evolved condescension, that I am clearly in need of something to take the edge of my OCD; that the project is not only possible, but it is simple. Work can start tomorrow. Apparently his band of banana rustling miscreants are back from the latest of a series of relatives’ funerals and are ready to take my money. Now would I go away please so he can get back to picking lice from his mate’s fur?
[Skip to the present day. Now that the damned slopes are built all wrong, I pace my hall like a madman on rainy nights waiting for that One Rain that is going to flood my hall, destroy all my yet unpaid for wooden doors, leaving me a gibbering mess. I must admit I am filled with a little historical skepticism. It was once taught to the young Aasvogel that the feats of his Sinhalese ancestors 1200 years ago was so impressive that they built a gigantic irrigation tank 5km long that has a constant slope of a couple of inches per kilometer. With a monotonous voice and the ever present threat of violence, the young Aasvogel was advised that this cannot be done today with existing technology, which has perplexed archeologists and engineers alike. Bollocks. Now, I don’t doubt that the agricultural civilization in the north a millennia ago possessed technology capable of such precision. After all this was before daytime reality TV, and people probably had more free time to figure out an elegant solution. I would like to assert that the only way the furry ancestors of Sarath-Baas and his rag-tag band of poo slingers would have built a 5 kilometer long artificial tank is by accident; the original request having been to build a fucking terrace. ]
I returned the next day. But of course, work has not started. I learn that when Gorillas say tomorrow, it turns out that there are CAVEATS. It reads like this: ‘We start work tomorrow, provided that
1. my workmen return from the binge-fest that their distant cousin’s mate’s funeral turned into;
2. Anything else I decide to prioritise instead;
3. I can still be bothered.’
But of course he expects to start tomorrow. For sure. I smile. Say a bad word to myself and get back into the car.
Days pass. Eventually even dead relatives are forgotten and the now sober and broke workers return. We are off! I come a few hours into the first day’s work. The primates appear to be UN-laying stones. Scraping off the cement and putting them back in the big pile in the corner. Naturally I am curious. Curious enough to launch the next Mass Cat Suicide. I ask a silly sounding question. Eventually, Gorilla #2 aka, ‘Surly’ responds. It seems they started laying the stones only to find that their imaginary line which was straight… WASN’T. Now I’ve seen lots of masonry sites in my career as a complete bloody civilian to civil engineering; and consistently I’ve noticed that the prevalent technology of the time is The Long Bit of Twine. I’ve heard that they even use it to build the straight bits of PARTICLE ACCELERATORS FOR FUCKS SAKE. So why don’t I see it used on my site? I take charge, call over Surly and instruct him to build with twine the grid that has been wanting. I leave, musing as I push the car into reverse, of what red hot metal rods could do to Gorilla behinds.
Success. The grid has worked. Stones are being placed in a pattern that excites the Aasvogel! Now, the concrete grout must go around the sides of my precious stones. I watch the first few being done. I see that the concrete is being smeared all over the stone face as my team clumsily work out their recently acquired opposable thumbs. I raise a small red flag: “That grout stuff on face: can you clean it off? It’ll ruin the stones.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll come off like a flakey prayer. We’ll sweep it off in fact, gratis. Ook.”
“Are you sure? I mean it’s cement, right? Same stuff that holds my walls together too, If I’m not mistaken.”
“Nah, it’ll come off.” This from the Aasvogel’s own father, a man who built hotels for a living not too long ago. Now, I like to take the advice of specialists, after all, what is the modern economy but about specialization? Today we’re long after the era when people used to complain about The Information Overload. That was when Megabytes was the standard, for crying out loud. Today, who can be the generalist?
Turns out I’m full of shit on that one too. Now my stones need acid etching. And not just vinegar. I have been directed to get my hands on nothing less than concentrated sulphuric acid, the scariest shit I’ve heard of, stuff which my chemistry teachers always hid from me. We’ve synthesized Nitro-Toluene (That one ‘Tri’ short of TNT, folks.) in the lab but they never ever let us have fun with the concentrated sulphuric Acid. The same stuff which I can buy over the counter in Pettah. I have to get the gorillas gloves, goggles, masks and also some clothes to cover their entire body. All it takes is a drop of their sweat to fall into the concentrated sulphuric acid and it will splatter everywhere maiming, blinding and killing. They only need to breathe the fumes to burn their respiratory system. I have to supervise every single movement they make. Now, on the few days I sleep, I have nightmares where I look away for a second, turn back to find one of them giving action to the thought: ‘maybe this would all go faster if I just splashed this everywhere’. I am grimly resolved, that if any die, I will simply dissolve what’s left of him in the vat of the acid. I’m not fucking explaining THIS one to the police.
As I try to piece together whatever shattered fragments of my sanity I can find, I realise what has transpired. My father, much like his idiotic son, likes to rely on specialists too. After all, that is how hotels get built you know, he relies on his subject matter experts for their recommendations. His specialization being, to carefully manage the many pieces of the complex project to completion.
Only today, on the matter of the sticky-to-stone-ness of concrete, he got his specialist advice from the same bloody gorilla.
1. First rule of Fluid Dynamics – NEVER talk about Fluid Dynamics.
2. Second Rule of Fluid Dynamics – Water flows downhill, for fucks sake…
3. Third Rule of Fluid Dynamics – Ignore Rules #1 and #2.
[Reader warning: much invective to follow]
It was a simple enough instruction to Sarath - Baas (Baas-Unnehi: an honorific for skilled workmen/artisan and therefore meaningless in the current context) and his whoop of liberated simians, whom I have mentioned previously, strategically shaved themselves so as to pass as construction workers of the homo sapiens kind. This in order to take on the job of building my pièce de résistance , the natural granite terrace that would effectively double that square area of the house, that was not garden. This was meant to be a long awaited marriage of The Aesthetic and The Practical. Finally after much tears, pressure and glaring silences, someone was to make an honest woman of The Aesthetic. I could talk the angles of approach I had in mind, of how the eye was to be drawn through the house out to the scene behind, of how the living space of the house was to not only be the square area contained within the walls, but that which was around it. My plans would routinely expand for this space. We could eat breakfast on it, jazz bands would throw gigs on it, we could lie on mats and watch shooting stars on it! This damned terrace would be the theatre that I would act MY LIFE on. I was going to notch up as many verbs as I legally could, right here, on the roughly cut granite of POTENTIAL.
Enter my construction workers and the MASONS from HELL. They confidently assure me that what I am desperately trying to explain the significance of, is a rather simple job which they have already done successfully for a recently satisfied client. So I should calm down. I am not swayed by their confidence on my project. I point out, that, philosophically speaking, Beauty, like Truth, lends existential purpose to itself, and my terrace would only serve its purpose by looking fabulous. That Nature abhors an ugly terrace; that there are circles of hell Dante carefully omitted to describe; where builders of such monstrosities would be forever rebuilding the same damn terrace over and over again while demons prod them with their fiery penises. And laugh at the tiny genitals of their charges. Genitals which stare out from the inside of small glass jars on tacky IKEA pinewood racks.
I walk them though the angles of the house pointing out that I want the stones laid in straight lines so that, see here, someone entering has their eye lead by the stones, which must be laid straight, OK? I go on to tell him of the man in Kandy, who in exchange for a small fortune is having has family gnaw the edges of the very stones we will be laying, till they are perfectly straight. Got it?
I move on with the requirements for proposal: Leave a slope away from the house when you build it, I said. Let it slope 4-6 inches across the 8 feet of it. Let the rain flow away from my house rather than collect in pools in it. This terrace is important. Every stone costs me money I haven’t even started earning yet and the peace of mind I have become accustomed to living without.
The lead Gorilla nods. Explains to me with the maximum of his newly evolved condescension, that I am clearly in need of something to take the edge of my OCD; that the project is not only possible, but it is simple. Work can start tomorrow. Apparently his band of banana rustling miscreants are back from the latest of a series of relatives’ funerals and are ready to take my money. Now would I go away please so he can get back to picking lice from his mate’s fur?
[Skip to the present day. Now that the damned slopes are built all wrong, I pace my hall like a madman on rainy nights waiting for that One Rain that is going to flood my hall, destroy all my yet unpaid for wooden doors, leaving me a gibbering mess. I must admit I am filled with a little historical skepticism. It was once taught to the young Aasvogel that the feats of his Sinhalese ancestors 1200 years ago was so impressive that they built a gigantic irrigation tank 5km long that has a constant slope of a couple of inches per kilometer. With a monotonous voice and the ever present threat of violence, the young Aasvogel was advised that this cannot be done today with existing technology, which has perplexed archeologists and engineers alike. Bollocks. Now, I don’t doubt that the agricultural civilization in the north a millennia ago possessed technology capable of such precision. After all this was before daytime reality TV, and people probably had more free time to figure out an elegant solution. I would like to assert that the only way the furry ancestors of Sarath-Baas and his rag-tag band of poo slingers would have built a 5 kilometer long artificial tank is by accident; the original request having been to build a fucking terrace. ]
I returned the next day. But of course, work has not started. I learn that when Gorillas say tomorrow, it turns out that there are CAVEATS. It reads like this: ‘We start work tomorrow, provided that
1. my workmen return from the binge-fest that their distant cousin’s mate’s funeral turned into;
2. Anything else I decide to prioritise instead;
3. I can still be bothered.’
But of course he expects to start tomorrow. For sure. I smile. Say a bad word to myself and get back into the car.
Days pass. Eventually even dead relatives are forgotten and the now sober and broke workers return. We are off! I come a few hours into the first day’s work. The primates appear to be UN-laying stones. Scraping off the cement and putting them back in the big pile in the corner. Naturally I am curious. Curious enough to launch the next Mass Cat Suicide. I ask a silly sounding question. Eventually, Gorilla #2 aka, ‘Surly’ responds. It seems they started laying the stones only to find that their imaginary line which was straight… WASN’T. Now I’ve seen lots of masonry sites in my career as a complete bloody civilian to civil engineering; and consistently I’ve noticed that the prevalent technology of the time is The Long Bit of Twine. I’ve heard that they even use it to build the straight bits of PARTICLE ACCELERATORS FOR FUCKS SAKE. So why don’t I see it used on my site? I take charge, call over Surly and instruct him to build with twine the grid that has been wanting. I leave, musing as I push the car into reverse, of what red hot metal rods could do to Gorilla behinds.
Success. The grid has worked. Stones are being placed in a pattern that excites the Aasvogel! Now, the concrete grout must go around the sides of my precious stones. I watch the first few being done. I see that the concrete is being smeared all over the stone face as my team clumsily work out their recently acquired opposable thumbs. I raise a small red flag: “That grout stuff on face: can you clean it off? It’ll ruin the stones.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll come off like a flakey prayer. We’ll sweep it off in fact, gratis. Ook.”
“Are you sure? I mean it’s cement, right? Same stuff that holds my walls together too, If I’m not mistaken.”
“Nah, it’ll come off.” This from the Aasvogel’s own father, a man who built hotels for a living not too long ago. Now, I like to take the advice of specialists, after all, what is the modern economy but about specialization? Today we’re long after the era when people used to complain about The Information Overload. That was when Megabytes was the standard, for crying out loud. Today, who can be the generalist?
Turns out I’m full of shit on that one too. Now my stones need acid etching. And not just vinegar. I have been directed to get my hands on nothing less than concentrated sulphuric acid, the scariest shit I’ve heard of, stuff which my chemistry teachers always hid from me. We’ve synthesized Nitro-Toluene (That one ‘Tri’ short of TNT, folks.) in the lab but they never ever let us have fun with the concentrated sulphuric Acid. The same stuff which I can buy over the counter in Pettah. I have to get the gorillas gloves, goggles, masks and also some clothes to cover their entire body. All it takes is a drop of their sweat to fall into the concentrated sulphuric acid and it will splatter everywhere maiming, blinding and killing. They only need to breathe the fumes to burn their respiratory system. I have to supervise every single movement they make. Now, on the few days I sleep, I have nightmares where I look away for a second, turn back to find one of them giving action to the thought: ‘maybe this would all go faster if I just splashed this everywhere’. I am grimly resolved, that if any die, I will simply dissolve what’s left of him in the vat of the acid. I’m not fucking explaining THIS one to the police.
As I try to piece together whatever shattered fragments of my sanity I can find, I realise what has transpired. My father, much like his idiotic son, likes to rely on specialists too. After all, that is how hotels get built you know, he relies on his subject matter experts for their recommendations. His specialization being, to carefully manage the many pieces of the complex project to completion.
Only today, on the matter of the sticky-to-stone-ness of concrete, he got his specialist advice from the same bloody gorilla.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Curious Nesting Behaviour of the Aasvogel – or - ‘Does this house make my butt look big?’
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, your average Aasvogel is not a completely socially backward bird. While Finches are gregarious and Bulbuls vain, the Aasvogel is often spotted wearing shorts so obviously synthetic, so hideously floral, that the original flowers depicted could possibly not occur in nature. Unless Mother Nature has to throw up now and then. Even bees, insects so depraved that they fiddle with plant genitals all day must have STANDARDS.
In my defence I can only offer this argument: I love the shorts in question. I am irreversibly, unconditionally and unabashedly besotted by this luminescent blue-green pair shorts. Our love is special. These shorts have been with me through it all, from snorkeling off Unawatuna to watching a young Alan Strang have lots of horsey related orgasms in the recent production of Equus. (Divert. Equus. Rocked. Muchly.) It has successfully contained my ass despite my recently widening proportions, and if it’s going to keep the faith, I’d sooner go naked than be one to give up on it.
On some matters however, the Aasvogel is more discerning. Sophisticated like. Like when I decided to sacrifice the lion’s share of my projected earning capacity for the NEXT DECADE to build a house. Much has to be said about this house. How it was transformed from something the previous owners ran away from barely resisting the urge to set fire to their sandals as they dusted it at the gate to something I that I now retreat to with joy in my self inflicted poverty.
But that which should be said about the building of the same house would at some stage involve a lengthy inquisition into the maternal pedigree of the whoop of gorillas who escaped from Zimbabwe to pose as my builders. Of how I cheerfully paid these charlatans large amounts of money I will not earn in the future, to cause me material harm and mental anguish. Of how my bankers have decided that since now that I am their bitch after all, they can make crank phone calls to me. To tell me that my last payment didn’t go through, and how they would be send someone to chop off my goolies, throw it into my house and set fire to it all, if it wasn’t against the BASEL II banking reform regulations. Refer the debt/liquidity chart above for more details. I also added to my vocabulary the more technically challenging sweary words I have not used hitherto. Swearing, it turns out, is like fucking. Motivation is nothing. Technique is everything.
But house was built, builders were strategically shaved and no one could hardly tell the difference in the end. After the poo was washed off the walls, that is. Which left me to manage the last hurdle as it were. That I now lived in what could only be charitably called: the provinces. The first sign was that my address is both unpronounceable as well as mildly embarrassing. It doesn’t trip off the tongue lightly as much it tries to knot it with your tonsils. Then came the time I met someone while swimming off Galle and introduced myself with my still new address. The response was not what I expected. “Ah I’m from Angoda too!” one chirped while his friend sniggered. SNIGGERED, THE BASTARD. Oh God, I wasn’t even living there yet.
My neighbourhood is a... village. It may be a village 20 minutes from Borella with all the modern day conveniences and vices, but it’s got fully grown men lounging about the local tea shop at 11am on a Monday morning, people who keep their freaking doors open all the damn time and the local criminal dogsbody currently in the payroll of a failed Provincial Council politician’s son down the road. The casual fearlessness of people you meet on the road, who’ll look you in the eye and kill you if you speak funny. And that’s just the women.
As with every rural setting there are a number of roles that I was thrilled to find filled. I’ve noted Local Harmless Addict #1. I’ve never met #2. Leading me to the conclusion that the local economy can only support one drug addict. I’ve been approached by Useless Male Proto-Patriarch who’s been delegated minor gossiping and the spreading of small rumours. Then we have The Neighbour Who Keeps Asking for Stuff. I was glad to know they existed long before I even moved in. But something niggled at me for a while, a shoe, perhaps a rural bathroom slipper so to speak, that had not dropped. I was waiting for something. Heaven knew what.
The great nesting process was relatively painless although physically draining. Got. My. Shit. Barely. Together. Success! I had achieved a crappy milestone in middle class mediocrity; I had more debt than I had cash generating assets. Who cares? I lit candles, mopped the cut cement floor. Waited for the friends of the Aasvogel.
In my defence I can only offer this argument: I love the shorts in question. I am irreversibly, unconditionally and unabashedly besotted by this luminescent blue-green pair shorts. Our love is special. These shorts have been with me through it all, from snorkeling off Unawatuna to watching a young Alan Strang have lots of horsey related orgasms in the recent production of Equus. (Divert. Equus. Rocked. Muchly.) It has successfully contained my ass despite my recently widening proportions, and if it’s going to keep the faith, I’d sooner go naked than be one to give up on it.
On some matters however, the Aasvogel is more discerning. Sophisticated like. Like when I decided to sacrifice the lion’s share of my projected earning capacity for the NEXT DECADE to build a house. Much has to be said about this house. How it was transformed from something the previous owners ran away from barely resisting the urge to set fire to their sandals as they dusted it at the gate to something I that I now retreat to with joy in my self inflicted poverty.
But that which should be said about the building of the same house would at some stage involve a lengthy inquisition into the maternal pedigree of the whoop of gorillas who escaped from Zimbabwe to pose as my builders. Of how I cheerfully paid these charlatans large amounts of money I will not earn in the future, to cause me material harm and mental anguish. Of how my bankers have decided that since now that I am their bitch after all, they can make crank phone calls to me. To tell me that my last payment didn’t go through, and how they would be send someone to chop off my goolies, throw it into my house and set fire to it all, if it wasn’t against the BASEL II banking reform regulations. Refer the debt/liquidity chart above for more details. I also added to my vocabulary the more technically challenging sweary words I have not used hitherto. Swearing, it turns out, is like fucking. Motivation is nothing. Technique is everything.
But house was built, builders were strategically shaved and no one could hardly tell the difference in the end. After the poo was washed off the walls, that is. Which left me to manage the last hurdle as it were. That I now lived in what could only be charitably called: the provinces. The first sign was that my address is both unpronounceable as well as mildly embarrassing. It doesn’t trip off the tongue lightly as much it tries to knot it with your tonsils. Then came the time I met someone while swimming off Galle and introduced myself with my still new address. The response was not what I expected. “Ah I’m from Angoda too!” one chirped while his friend sniggered. SNIGGERED, THE BASTARD. Oh God, I wasn’t even living there yet.
My neighbourhood is a... village. It may be a village 20 minutes from Borella with all the modern day conveniences and vices, but it’s got fully grown men lounging about the local tea shop at 11am on a Monday morning, people who keep their freaking doors open all the damn time and the local criminal dogsbody currently in the payroll of a failed Provincial Council politician’s son down the road. The casual fearlessness of people you meet on the road, who’ll look you in the eye and kill you if you speak funny. And that’s just the women.
As with every rural setting there are a number of roles that I was thrilled to find filled. I’ve noted Local Harmless Addict #1. I’ve never met #2. Leading me to the conclusion that the local economy can only support one drug addict. I’ve been approached by Useless Male Proto-Patriarch who’s been delegated minor gossiping and the spreading of small rumours. Then we have The Neighbour Who Keeps Asking for Stuff. I was glad to know they existed long before I even moved in. But something niggled at me for a while, a shoe, perhaps a rural bathroom slipper so to speak, that had not dropped. I was waiting for something. Heaven knew what.
The great nesting process was relatively painless although physically draining. Got. My. Shit. Barely. Together. Success! I had achieved a crappy milestone in middle class mediocrity; I had more debt than I had cash generating assets. Who cares? I lit candles, mopped the cut cement floor. Waited for the friends of the Aasvogel.
Much later, as we allowed a single well toned guitar and the acoustics of the front terrace to transport us, I heard it. As did all my guests. Down the road, a slurred commentary was offered at high decibels asserting that a certain lady was of ill repute. And that he doing the asserting would show she with the reputation, a thing or two, if he could only manage the complex motor skills involved. And profanity, sweet profanity breaking the now otherwise silent night. Even the crickets were listening for the juicier words. I leaned back, relieved. I had found my Local Drunk and Abusive Husband.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Why Aasvogels are not naturally good parishioners
Cant... watch... Again. Sides... Split.
So I got into thinking. Of how to write the perfect last chapter for the holy book that would deliver me hordes of pliant wide-eyed followers offering me their bank -account numbers and naked, nubile female bodies in exchange for the insta-mix cup-a-soup spirituality that they crave. Turns out it's harder than I originally estimated.
After all aren't the last books the all important set up? The necessary set change between the antics of your Deity along with his sun-burnt Chosen People and the Act where you, my sweaty pilgrim, are supposed to come in? Would’t you expect a modicum of inspiration? Even instruction? Perhaps a little reaching out, welcoming future bleating flocks to CALL THE TOLL FREE NUMBER and PAY FOR MY TOUPEE, PRAISE Y’ALL.
Maybe even that last chance to insert the suppository of reality lest the discerning notice certain things? Like how so very conveniently, while we weren't around, the divine seems to have been in town walking on water and ordering all the expensive drinks at the bars, having renaissance artists paint elaborate and beautiful portraits of their nights out. Only now, just when the insolent atheists aren’t allowing themselves to be burnt any longer, there isn’t even an autographed beer-mat to throw at them.
I have been getting a lot of inspiration from Zoroastrianism. Clearly this is where all the spiritual oomph is at. If religions were bread, where the Church of England would be, say, Cucumber Sandwiches with the crusts neatly cut off, Zoroastrianism would be Mystical Superbread who’s recipe has been LOST UNTO MAN IN THE EDDIES OF TIME. In Capitals. It’s one of those old untamed religions that takes it’s metaphors seriously. A fire that has been kept alive for 3000 years, their dead left on mountainsides above deep chasms. And if that wasn’t enough imagery and weirdness, apparently crows pecking out the eyeballs of the dead signify a positive outcome in the afterlife. Perhaps the Afterlife is ugly.
Their sacred text the ‘Gathas’ (which turns out to be a set of devotional hymns, giving our own equivalent word an Ancient Iranian birth) has the prophet Zoroaster exploring ideas of Truth, Goodness and devotion to his God: Ahura Mazda in his stanzas. Wholesome, if somewhat formulaic. The final verses? They end with Zoroaster at his daughter’s wedding, gloating how he was right in his faith after all. As religious texts go, I approve muchly. When I am the Omnipotent Omniscient Big Kahuna, my sacred text would have a last chapter that would read:
"When the crowed asked the ascending Aasvogel (May his lightness shine on us) what he bade to the rest of humanity, He spake thus: "HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHA HA HAH AH AHAHAH….[cut to last verse]…. AHAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHAHA HAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHA, the rest of you, BURN!"
The Christian Bible itself is a pretty impressive text. Lots of naughty sex, racial violence and a great chariot chase scene. But mostly it’s chock full of fantastic warning and moving lyricism. Orwell gives this extract from Ecclesiastes as an example of good writing in his Politics and the English Language:
“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”
BADAAAAAAM! Bang! Home Run! Oncore! Now that’s how you write.
And the Bible just flings it all away at the end. Beasts with seven heads coming out of the water? Wtf? DID MAN, THERE AND THEN JUST DISCOVER CRACK? HAD ALL THE GREAT WRITERS BEEN LURED AWAY TO WRITE SCRIPTS FOR CSI?
In the end I put it down to performance anxiety. I can see the intended writer of Revelations being handed a sheaf of battered yellow parchments (the Sum Total of Thought, Debate and Philosophical Inquiry of the entire Judaeo-Christian movement from the dawn of Language itself) by the dying penultimate author and been told “Son you have the greatest job of us all, you get to write the big finish….gak.” SO NO PRESSURE.
Weeks later, having just put down the crack pipe (Patent Pending), the new author will go “Seven headed water beasts!” And it will seem like a good idea at the time.
Just Confirmed: Marcus Aurelius Rocks.
The kind of wild pre-Christian philosophy that makes me want to stand up and applaud. None of this counter-intuitive Turn the Other Cheek stuff. These were Old School Romans, people who brought us the wonderful term decimate. Show one of them a Martyr and he'd feed them to his pets. And sell tickets to for people to watch the show.
“Hippocrates, after curing many diseases, himself fell sick and died. The Chaldaei foretold the deaths of many, and then fate caught them too. Alexander and Pompeius and Caius Caesar, after so often completely destroying whole cities, and in battle cutting to pieces many ten thousands of cavalry and infantry, themselves too at last departed from life. Heraclitus, after so many speculations on the conflagration of the universe, was filled with water internally and died smeared all over with mud. And lice destroyed Democritus; and other lice killed Socrates.
What means all this? Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the voyage, thou art come to shore; get out. If indeed to another life, there is no want of gods, not even there; but if to a state without sensation, thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel, which is as much inferior as that which serves it is superior: for the one is intelligence and deity; the other is earth and corruption.” - Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
“Hippocrates, after curing many diseases, himself fell sick and died. The Chaldaei foretold the deaths of many, and then fate caught them too. Alexander and Pompeius and Caius Caesar, after so often completely destroying whole cities, and in battle cutting to pieces many ten thousands of cavalry and infantry, themselves too at last departed from life. Heraclitus, after so many speculations on the conflagration of the universe, was filled with water internally and died smeared all over with mud. And lice destroyed Democritus; and other lice killed Socrates.
What means all this? Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the voyage, thou art come to shore; get out. If indeed to another life, there is no want of gods, not even there; but if to a state without sensation, thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel, which is as much inferior as that which serves it is superior: for the one is intelligence and deity; the other is earth and corruption.” - Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
Monday, May 12, 2008
Wherin the Author is buffetted by the asshole with no hand-eye co-ordination behind him.
[Not the actual car, but the Formula Plus Guy seemed a little to busy to you know ask my name, or lend me his photos.]Mondays. Bringer of harsh realities, schoolyard shootings and for the unwary aasvogel, evil car shattering destruction and whiplash that could paralyse him in the next fifteen years. (Divert. 'could'? What sort of value does the the word 'could' bring here? Could PARALYSE sounds exactly the same to me as: you will be paralysed NO MATTER WHAT. It's like your doctor saying: "Good tidings, I've reduced your chance of PAINFUL DEATH by 12%. Who's the Man?" And pats his own buttocks for a few minutes while you look away politely. )
Elaborate. The Aasvogel in question drives a car, a little Satanic Suzuki Swift with a manual transmission that is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Weekends and late evenings have seen such a diabolic vehicle accelerating happily, maniacal laughter ringing through the streets, a fellow speed demon or unfortunate trapped in the front seat as we challenge the widely held view that: thank you, the price of gasoline is high enough already, we get it, Mr Gore, we should use less. Now show us the pretty picture with the polar bear trapped on the rapidly dissolving ice floe.
There are two states of driving for the Afrikaaner Vulture. Lets call them Go Satan, Go! and Sitbackitsgoingtotakehoursinthistraffic. The former is fun, exclusive to clear roads and gives that happy feeling as guess what, those boffins in Suzuki thought lets build tiny cars with 1300cc's of JOY and they'll fling themselves forward like there's loads of Suzuki pussy out there they are missing out on.
The second state evolved as a reaction to those journeys that are the daily trips from Battaramulla to the places of work that invariably feel like an Odyesian journey, sans sirens. Perhaps the occasional Cyclops. The Return on Effort Invested while driving at such times is minimal and weaving, creeping and swearing just have not shown any clear incremental benefit. Even the swearing, dear reader. For those who don't know me or haven't been in earshot at a wedding or a baptism or whatever it is your allowed to drink at, (oh wait, that's work) I like my profanity. Nothing relaxes me as much as expelling the majority of my breath shouting something Inspiring and Educational. (Like 'fuck') It's like untying a cerebral knot. After a fashion.
It is to be said that we are in sad state where even the profane cannot elevate you. Nevertheless, years of reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and forgetting the central theme has left me with: Tools. I can zone out from this crap. Which is why the decision to throw in my lot with Suzukius Diabolus was clear when i was presented with a choice of two cars, one with an automatic transmission, the other with a CD player. I had already got half my CD collection into the car before my lessor pointed out gently, this is the point you tell me whether you want to rent this car or not.
So there you have it, mornings were gentle strolls into work, listening to the Zephyr Song or Mozart's Requiem (Deutsche Grammaphon recording). Cars would no longer be elbowed out of the way but allowed to pass if belligerent enough. Hardly anyone's mother's sustained any verbal abuse anymore. None was needed. Choirs sang Kyrie Elieson at studio volumes reminding all around that yes, you are going to die, get some good grovelling in while you've got the chance. Or at the very least learn Latin.
Today was different. If the Fates left a comment on my blog it would read "Dear Assvogel, you were so anxious about the work you need to get done this Monday morning and have been pondering your long term career directions and what you need to do to get there, we decided to help you out on both counts. Guess what, you only got in to work now at 11am and everyone was so understanding that you'll feel impelled to stay till 8:30pm to finish your work. Oh and your career's sorted. BMW will hire you shortly. As a crash test dummy."
Friday, August 31, 2007
identity, part 1.
γνῶθι σεαυτόν read the entrance to the temple of Delphi. Know thyself. Politics, like all social activities must stem from our understanding of ourselves and our groupings. (i dislike like the word 'tribe'. It artificially associates a perfectly simple idea: that man has alliances, allegiances and groups, with the word tribe that has no meaning to most of us. The imagery is all wrong.) Who am I? What is Sri Lanka? Who do I identify myself with? More importantly, who don't i identify myself with? Whose arse am i blowing smoke up when I say that every man is my brother? All this confusion, and i haven't even read Kripke yet. [interrupting this ramble for an announcement: If anyone, i say anyone has a copy of Saul Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity', please share]
A year go I was in the midst of a heated debate with a close friend when she spat out the line at me: "You're not even really Sri Lankan;" The unsaid portion of her sentence, of course:"... you have no right to have an opinion of it". I don't discuss anything with her anymore. I hear statements like this often around me, and know that some regard their identity as a delicate, almost-spiritual state, constantly under threat; it needs to be guarded against change, against impurity, and most of all against analysis. Stripping off the pink fluffy bloomers of mysticism and looking hard at what we call 'ourselves' is bound to scare anyone who hasn't already spent quiet desperate moments struggling to know who they are and whether there is anything to attach worth to in themselves.
Today i am defiant. 'The State of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka recognises me as a citizen,' I say. 'Your small minded reductionist opinion doesn't fucking count. The idea that Sri Lanka's questions should only be addressed by someone who has spent no part of his life outside the country, or that this country can only represented by the mean, median or majority citizen or just someone who only has such and such opinions is an idea i wish to vomit out of my consciousness like the poisoned meal it is. Sri Lanka should celebrate it's extremities as much as the the huddled masses in the middle of the bell curve. It's the guy on TV in the saffron robe telling us that Sri Lanka is the same as Sinhala, the vacuous radio show host affecting an American accent so far from its shore, its the tuition teacher, the bus driver, the CEO in the back seat of his silver Jaguar, the effeminate playwright; all of them, both recognisable, indigenous and not.
Establishing a national identity is the artificial exercises of finding the lowest common denominator for a diverse group of people while carefully avoiding the stance that people are just people universally. Nation-states are human constructs, so are the identities that go with them. I am a Sri Lankan by one virtue alone: that I am a citizen of this republic. Definitions that attempt to limit this are both contrived and inaccurate. Must I support the cricket team also? Like our tea? Feel some diffused love for the square area of the country or my fellow citizens? Should I discriminate in favour of them always or in certain situations? Do i need to feel Sri Lankan, or is it enough if i just feel like I'm being screwed by the government? If I have a stake in this country and its future as the vessel of my aspirations and happiness, is that not sufficient motivation for me to act to better it? Do i need to be patriotic too? Should I gush?
[Pause for real life, loans work and baths, more later.]
A year go I was in the midst of a heated debate with a close friend when she spat out the line at me: "You're not even really Sri Lankan;" The unsaid portion of her sentence, of course:"... you have no right to have an opinion of it". I don't discuss anything with her anymore. I hear statements like this often around me, and know that some regard their identity as a delicate, almost-spiritual state, constantly under threat; it needs to be guarded against change, against impurity, and most of all against analysis. Stripping off the pink fluffy bloomers of mysticism and looking hard at what we call 'ourselves' is bound to scare anyone who hasn't already spent quiet desperate moments struggling to know who they are and whether there is anything to attach worth to in themselves.
Today i am defiant. 'The State of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka recognises me as a citizen,' I say. 'Your small minded reductionist opinion doesn't fucking count. The idea that Sri Lanka's questions should only be addressed by someone who has spent no part of his life outside the country, or that this country can only represented by the mean, median or majority citizen or just someone who only has such and such opinions is an idea i wish to vomit out of my consciousness like the poisoned meal it is. Sri Lanka should celebrate it's extremities as much as the the huddled masses in the middle of the bell curve. It's the guy on TV in the saffron robe telling us that Sri Lanka is the same as Sinhala, the vacuous radio show host affecting an American accent so far from its shore, its the tuition teacher, the bus driver, the CEO in the back seat of his silver Jaguar, the effeminate playwright; all of them, both recognisable, indigenous and not.
Establishing a national identity is the artificial exercises of finding the lowest common denominator for a diverse group of people while carefully avoiding the stance that people are just people universally. Nation-states are human constructs, so are the identities that go with them. I am a Sri Lankan by one virtue alone: that I am a citizen of this republic. Definitions that attempt to limit this are both contrived and inaccurate. Must I support the cricket team also? Like our tea? Feel some diffused love for the square area of the country or my fellow citizens? Should I discriminate in favour of them always or in certain situations? Do i need to feel Sri Lankan, or is it enough if i just feel like I'm being screwed by the government? If I have a stake in this country and its future as the vessel of my aspirations and happiness, is that not sufficient motivation for me to act to better it? Do i need to be patriotic too? Should I gush?
[Pause for real life, loans work and baths, more later.]
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