The Night Of Time Far Surpasseth The Day

Sometimes, when you've got a few spare minutes, and you want to relax, well, you just want to do nothing. I don't mean have a nap. I mean remain conscious but veg out, not taxing mind or body, doing stuff which will not enrich you or the earth, something meaningless,  even useless. You understand, don't you? It happened to me at 2.25 pm yesterday, I suddenly had 35 minutes spare. Pay bills? No. Book the window cleaners? No. Tweet? No, no, no. I wanted to bludge.
So I took my birthday 16/02 and changed it to letters with each number corresponding to a letter of the alphabet in sequence and 0 becoming, er, O. I made a new word AFOB. I googled AFOB. True dinks, I kid you not. Amazingly, the first item that came up was the Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin from the Archaeological Institute of America. Wow. My favourite non-biological science discipline. Archaeology.
My eyes glazed as I immediately thought of Time Team, the most rivetting hour that you can spend in front of TV, and a favourite of mine. I mean the UK version, where this group of unkempt, grungy archaeologists wade through the British mud for three days to prove that Bronze Age man had a rubbish tip under this carpark. I'm sure their clothes were retrieved from an earlier dig. Tony Robinson, the host, runs around like a hobbit on heat exhorting the experts to explain what this different-coloured mud actually means. My favourite team member is Phil Harding, whose dialect is almost as abstruse as his persona. He greets a major find, such as a 3 mm piece of flint, with guffaws that would wake some of the skeletons he digs up.
There is a US version of Time Team. I've seen it. Not as good. It's sanitised, clean clothes, modern equipment, gleaming vehicles. No, the UK version is for me.
I checked the Archaeological Institute of America site thoroughly. Under the History tag, we learn that the first President was Charles Eliot Norton, elected in 1879. At the time he was Professor of History of Art at Harvard, and a true Renaissance Man - author, journalist, and, can you believe, in the early 20th Century he spoke out in favour of euthanasia. And, AND, he translated Dante's Divine Comedy. I only had time in my 35 minutes to read Volume 3 (Paradise), his translation is truly beautiful, you can catch it at Project Gutenberg.
When he was elected President of the Institute, Norton said in his speech: 'The night of time far surpasseth the day, and it is the task of archaeology to light up some of this long night with its torch, which burns ever with a clearer flame with each advancing step into the darkness'. He would be proud of Tony and Phil and the Team.
At home that evening, I recounted this adventure to my wife. I got the distinct impression she was less than impressed, it was something about her frown and the single raised eyebrow. But nevertheless I encourage you all, when you've got that spare few minutes, change your birthday into a word and google it, it's great fun, but don't tell them at home...

It Doesn't Get Any More Exciting Than That

I'm asking you. What is the most exciting thing you've done? Space Walk? Underwater rescue? Mt. Everest? I didn't think so. Maybe you are a little like me. I can recall a long helicopter ride to visit oil rigs. A moderately dangerous high altitude drive. Er, there was a division 3 win in Tattslotto, about 100 bucks. And from there on I'm struggling.
But when Richard Morecroft, host of SBS TV show Letters & Numbers, told the champion "You opened the show with a 9-letter word and it doesn't get any more exciting than that",  I agreed and nodded vigorously. This was right up there with helicopter rides and dangerous roads.
Let me tell you about Letters & Numbers. I love it. It is a show that only people with a double-dominant NN nerd gene watch. When genome analysis does become affordable, like about $25.00, then I will pay for the test and I KNOW that the NN gene will be there. There are two contestants. The loser gets a dictionary. The winner, er, gets a dictionary. (Are you getting the picture?). They are given alternating tasks. One is to make as large a word as possible from nine jumbled letters. (Are you following me?) This segment is adjudicated by David Astle, a cryptic crossword guru who resembles an old hippy. He provides his imprimatur on the proffered words. The other task is to calculate a given total by using six random numbers, using each number once but in any desired arithmetical way. Don't leave the room yet, it gets better. The numbers are judged by Lily Serna, a leggy 20-something-year-old (no mail please) mathematician, who shows us how to get the exact number pretty well every time. She is brilliant.
In summary, I would describe the show as Sudoku meets Wheel of Fortune. It is compulsive viewing, on five nights a week at 6 pm. The next show is tomorrow. I'm already getting excited...

A Dormitory Without An Alarm Clock

His final message: "As to me, I leave tomorrow for an unknown destination". Ambrose Bierce, author, Civil War Hero and journalist, then went to Mexico and disappeared. He was never seen again. It was 1913, and the sprightly 71-year-old chronic asthmatic with an acerbic tongue and pen vanished, as they say, into thin air.
No one has solved this mystery. There are only two possibilities. One, involuntary Oblivion, like his hero Peyton Farquhar in Bierce's 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'. Or two, voluntary Nirvana on earth, secluding himself in warm climes with a tequila or two, you know the routine, until eternal Nirvana beckons.
Did a man like Bierce, whose motto apparently was "Nothing matters", think about what happens after you, you know, die? I went to his own words for help. The Devil's Dictionary. Surely there are clues there. I looked at his definition of Oblivion: "The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock". Whoa. For Bierce the concept of Oblivion was harsh. Unpleasant and unattractive. Definitely an involuntary act. I certainly don't find his Oblivion a noble end for me.
Well, what about his thoughts on Nirvana:. "In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it". Now we're talking. Uber-meditation on earth morphing into supreme Nirvana for eternity. Yep. Definitely. That's him. And that's for me too.  Hmm. Let's look at his definition again; "...particularly to those wise enough to understand it". There's nothing much to understand, is there? It's, you know, er, Nirvana...the Void...neither being nor non-being...
Yeh, well, maybe OK for him, but for me, now that I think about it, 'a dormitory without an alarm clock' is starting to look good.

They Are Not Ripe Yet

I used to think 'Sour Grapes' was just a metaphor. Now I'm not so sure. I blame it on an article in a European journal, obscurely titled "XYZ - Nondum Matura Es" The XYZ is irrelevant, you can substitute 'Atomic powered trains" or "ESP as a communication tool", that part makes no difference, it's the inscrutable Latin of "Nondum Matura Es" that I didn't understand. So, well, I looked it up, you know, with Google, Wiki et al, and it turns out it's from one of Aesop's fables, as translated by Phaedrus, a Romanized Macedonian who lived in the time of Jesus of Nazareth. You might know it as the Fox and the Grapes, and this is the translation, thanks to Gutenberg:
'Urged by hunger, a Fox, leaping with all her might, tried to reach a cluster of grapes upon a lofty vine. When she found she could not reach them, she left them, saying: "They are not ripe yet, I don't like to eat them while sour". Those who disparage what they cannot perform, ought to apply this lesson to themselves'.
Ergo 'Sour Grapes', although the "Nondum matura es" refers to 'They are not ripe yet" or not ready for efficient commercial use, such as atomic powered trains and ESP.
But I started to worry about the "Sour Grapes". Yeh, OK, it's a metaphor - to us. But not to the poor fox, she knew these as real grapes, not metaphorical. How can we explain this? OK, some call the whole story an allegory, which is an extended metaphor. but that's not the end of the..er..story. Trust the psychiatrists, they have announced that this tale is a perfect example of cognitive dissonance. Say what? It appears that cognitive dissonance is the act of holding two conflicting or incompatible ideas simultaneously, and in order to reduce the misery of this state of affairs, the hero justifies the stand-off by an excuse. So, I want the grapes, I can't have them, well, they are sour anyway. I FEEL BETTER.
Take your pick, metaphor, allegory, cognitive dissonance - me, I'm with the fox, I reckon the grapes were sour, so there.

I Said I Want A Second Opinion

Boy, are they ugly tomatoes. I was picking a few from our veggie patch, and with a name like Rouge de Marmande, you would expect them to look glorious. Aristocratic, even noble, perfectly formed, symmetrical, evenly coloured. But no, this variety of tomato is real ugly. They vary in shape from elliptical to drum-shaped to ugly. They are called ribbed by the experts, another way of saying they have deep irregular grooves, ingrained with dirt and cobwebs, and ugly. The colour can best be described as variegated, another word for ugly.
So, why do we grow them. They are a cool-climate fruit. We live in an elevated position nearly at the southernmost part of mainland Australia, and the winds blow off the Southern Ocean most of the time. Yep, cool climate. In fact, our weather parameters are the same as Launceston in Tasmania. And the Rouge de Marmande thrive in this climate. They also have a very thick skin. Resistant to insults when I call them ugly, and incidentally resistant to disease. And, you know, they taste terrific. We love them. They may not have the contours of a Grosse Lisse or a Roma, but if you are in a similar climate, get a tub and grow them.
Our first reaction on seeing them was "Grow these funny looking things? You have to be crazy!" But as the late and great Rodney Dangerfield said: "My psychiatrist told me I was crazy and I said I want a second opinion. He said OK, you're ugly too". Nuff said.

The Sun Rises In The Evening

It's paradoxical but one of the main producers of gluten-free products is a country built on pasta. Yep, Italy produces a huge range of excellent gluten-free food; that is, except for the beer. Couldn't drink it. So was I excited when O'Brien's Brewery opened in 2007. They now supply Australia and the world with the best gluten-free beer available (declaration of interest: none), made in Ballarat, a 19th Century gold-rush city about 100 kilometers from Melbourne. I was enjoying an O'Brien's lager yesterday afternoon, and my thoughts turned to boutique beers, a phenomenon of my time on this planet. I can walk up the road from where I work to the Belgian Beer Cafe, I thought; and there are some great Belgian beers. And six of the seven Trappist beers available are made in Belgium. Which sort of made me think of Thomas Merton.
Merton was a Trappist monk, a Cistercian, a mystic, author of a 20th Century classic religious text called The Seven Story Mountain, and an expert on eastern Religions. Not bad for a bloke who became a Roman Catholic at the age of twenty-three! It is said he picked the Cistercian order because they didn't talk much. They follow the Rule of St Benedict, promulgated in the 6th century. The Rule of St Benedict is basically a set of Guidelines for monks. I wonder if he chaired a committee that produced them, wouldn't be surprised.
Thomas Merton is the best exponent and explainer of Zen Buddhism I have read. Perhaps because he understands the language of mysticism, and yet he doesn't say too much, just enough in simple terms. After all, that's Zen. Words are not considered important, they just confuse the (ultimate) picture. Merton's Zen and the Birds of Appetite is a collection of 10 essays. They are readable and uplifting. For example, one chapter is on Kitaro Nishido who formed what would later be called the Kyoto School of philosophy early last century. This has the makings of an impossible subject to understand for most of us, but Merton's interpretation is user-friendly, and very comforting. He writes that Nishida 'seeks to preserve the unity that exists between the consciousness and the outer world reflected in it'. And Merton goes on to make Nishida's philosophy as applicable to Zen as it is to a theistic religion. Quite a feat.
Thomas Merton starts the book with a Zen saying, known to many: 'Ride your horse along the edge of the sword, Hide yourself in the middle of the flames, Blossoms of the fruit tree will bloom in the fire, The sun rises in the evening'. It's meant to confuse, unsettle, and dispose of duality. Thank goodness Merton's book does the opposite - clears the mind, relaxes. Oops, did I write 'the opposite'? A Zen master would have whacked me on the head for that one. Beer, anyone?