Reluctance by Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
    And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
    And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
    And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
    Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
    And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
    When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
    No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
    The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
    But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man
    Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
    To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
    Of a love or a season?

The Third Man… neurological defect or a glitch in The Matrix?

With only 22 hours to spare I just finished our next tome on the existence of the Third Man. Author John Geiger distills the phenomenon of sensing the presence of another being with us during times of stress or panic as not a guardian angel or religious savior but as a neurological defect that enables us to triumph over our immediate appalling situation. He further suggests that we should learn to master this feature of the brain. While interesting, I am not sure I am sold on the “science” behind the idea but I do have a few tangential ideas…

1) Check out the TED video presentation by Oliver Sacks (the neuropsychiatrist who wrote Awakenings) as he describes the lucid hallucinations of visually impaired people and the discovery of the areas of the brain the recognize teeth, facial features and cartoons. Maybe this is just biological brain stimulation and nothing more?

2) What of Will Ferrell’s character in the movie “Stranger Than Fiction” who is an IRS auditor suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire life, from his work, to his love-interest, to his death.  Maybe we are all just characters in our own book?

3) Perhaps there is a much simpler story… Maybe we are all captives of The Matrix and much like Deja Vu is an example of the The Matrix re-writing code to fix a glitch or bug… the experience of The Third Man is an example of our minds transcending The Matrix to see that we are actually part of “the system?”

Atlas Engaged

I submit for Fight Club’s consideration Anne Heller’s timely biography: Ayn Rand and the World She Made. Because, if there was ever a counterpoint for Rand’s unfettered capitalism (and by extension Alan Greenspan’s) it would seem to be our near brush with financial collapse. But, apparently the tea parties and Glenn Becks of the world have breathed new life (and book sales) into Ayn Rand. And, their bogeyman is Obama’s “socialist agenda.”

Nearly a year since Obama’s election, and in spite of two wars and a recession, Obama has embarked on an ambitious agenda of nation-building at home. What the Randian naysayers call socialism, I call getting America back on track.

It’s immoral that families go bankrupt due to illness. It is reprehensible that financiers made off with our savings and now are repossessing the very homes they talked us into. And, as Thomas Friedman has been advocating for years, we should be focusing on green technology, not only because it will help with climate change, but because it will lead to energy independence and thereby increased national security.

So, a year after much of the country came together to elect Barack Obama, we should renew our dedication to fixing what is wrong with our country. We, especially the Atlases among us, should share in the necessary sacrifices and engage in rebuilding America.

atlas7201

Schwarzenegger Veto Message

Although Broken Spines is a family blog, I couldn’t resist a post on the Governator’s recent veto message to the California Assembly. All you have to do is read the first letter of each sentence vertically – you get the message.

Schwarzenegger Veto

Lisbeth Salander

I just friended Lisbeth Salander on Facebook. Normally, this would not be noteworthy, other than the fact that Lisbeth is the fictional heroine of Stieg Larsson’s detective series The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire and the forthcoming Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. I just finished the second book and can’t wait until for the third to come out. I studied at Handelshögskolan in Stockholm where the novels take place. Reading them takes me right back to those dark winter nights on Sveavägen. Maybe that’s why I want to be Lisbeth’s friend, if only on Facebook.

Hurry up and read them, because Hollywood just purchased the rights to the series.

Lisbeth

Sell the Vatican, Feed the World

Sarah Silverman is awesome. Through her heretical, irreverent, and biting wit, she actually makes a good point.

Audience Participation

Don’t get me wrong. I like the Decemberists as much as the next guy. Well, actually not as much as the guy next to me at their show in Minneapolis on Friday. Clearly he was a big fan; he knew the words to every song…and sang them…loudly. As if this weren’t enough to show his glee, he played the air guitar and air drums and air keyboard throughout the show, constantly bumping into me. To top it off, Colin Meloy employed the time-honored, raised-arms, clap-along-with-me routine. But, this time Meloy teased the audience and varied the beat throwing everyone off. My gleeful neighbor giggled at the ploy. And, as I have stated in this space before, I hate being told to clap. And, if the Decemberists had varied their set at all from when they played Rock the Garden (a much better show btw) here last summer, and if the guy next to me didn’t totally drive me nuts, I would have clapped.

Or, maybe I’m getting too old to go to concerts.

Beatle Fan

Referendum on the Second City?

After having just read Devil in the White City, about Chicago hosting the World’s Fair in 1893, it is interesting to see the reactions to losing their bid for the Olympics in 2016 (the modern equivalent of a World’s Fair). Even President Obama and Oprah couldn’t convince the IOC to bring the Olympic to the Midwest. Instead, South America will get its first Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, a city more famous for its crime–guide books say not to carry anything, not even a bag to the beach, and they advise you to carry small bills so that when (not if) you’re mugged, you don’t lose much.

Anyhow, there is no need to prove that Chicago is a worldly city. Chicago proved that 116 years ago when Daniel Burnham delivered the White City to an awestruck world. Plus, they still have the Cubs.

Congratulations Cariocas!

RiodeJaneiro

 

Jules & Vincent As Legos

As you ponder my previous post about Samuel Jackson as a Norse raider, now imagine him in Lego form. Our compliments to the CubeDude (via The Coolist).

cube-dudes_vincent-and-jules_1

May Thy Enemies Be Dispersed

A 55 year-old with a metal detector found 1,500 pieces of Anglo-Saxon booty in a field in Birmingham, England. Archaeologists say this is a staggering discovery and will redefine perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England (5th century AD to the Norman conquest of 1066).

As I read the AP report of this find, I was struck by a of small strip of gold (pictured below) inscribed with a warlike Latin quotation from the Old Testament, which translates as:

“Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face.”

Makes me think of a Samuel Jackson as a medieval Anglo-Saxon quoting Ezekiel 25:17:  

…I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.

staffordshirehoard

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