Personal Blogs

I'm heartbroken by

A last dragonfly's symmetry.

At sunset.

Shelley and Keats were talking one day.

"Do you have any holiday plans?" asked Shelley.

"Not exactly a holiday", Keats responded, "More a summer employment, but in a climate very congenial to my health, and well remunerated".

Intrigued, Shelley inquired: "What exactly is the post?"

"It's in the famous Italian city of Pisa", said Keats: "The popularity of the Grand Tour has burgeoned apace, and many visitors to Italy now clamour to ascend La Campanile from which the revered Signor Galileo Galilei is claimed to have carried out his celebrated experiment.

So popular is this to touristi—as they are there described—that crowds of our fellow-countrymen assemble daily at the entrance. The authorities make a small charge for the ascent, for the maintenance of the bell tower, and are also charged with ensuring that no person is put at risk of life or limb: so there is a limit on how many can be up the tower at any one time.

I answered an advertisement in the Times of London, seeking a person: 'Capable of organizing groups of people desirous of ascending our famous tower, and ensuring their convenience and safety in a highly popular destination. Fluent English is required'—and got the job.

So I'm off there for the summer months."

"Congratulations my dear fellow", Shelley exclaimed warmly. "So you'll be minding your Pisan queues."

Close your eyes and slowly inhale. Hold it to a count of six, then breathe out gradually.

It's often said that each time you do that, you are likely to breathe in a molecule from Julius Caesar's dying breath.

At first sight this is surprising.

But there are an enormous number of molecules in a breath of air. If the molecules in Caesar's last gasp are shared out evenly across the whole of the earth's atmosphere—plausible after 2000 years—then on average the air we inhale with each new breath (about 500 ml) will include one of those molecules.

Julius Caesar could just as well be any person that has ever lived.

Or the last mammoth.

Scritch scratch at my window.

A sharp clawed one seeking entry.

I must brush up my endgame first.

Somehow I came upon this fascinating cat-lore.

Norse deity Freya rode in a chariot drawn by two cats: "kõttum tveim" in Old Icelandic. The illustration captures their robust spirit well, I feel.



Credit: Ludwig Pietsch, 1865

In the Old Icelandic literature Freya's team are also called "fressa", which probably means "tomcats", who don't piss about. But "fressa" may also mean "bears" though, big guys, and so there was a scholarly debate in the mid 1800s (involving people like Jakob Grimm, of the fairy tales, for example). The modern view supports cats (of course).

I wondered if Freya's cats had names (like Santa's reindeer). One source claimed they were called "Bygul" and "Trejgul" and that may be: I haven't read the Icelandic Eddas. I was doubtful though, because in Latin there are names "Biga" and "Triga": which mean—guess what?—nothing to do with cats. It's the number of wheels on a wagon (i.e. chariot), 2 or 3.

So maybe "Bygul" and "Trejgul" are just a clever joke. I don't know. But then you see the idea that of a Goddess in a chariot pulled by big cats goes back further than the Norse sagas. There are illustrations from Greek and Roman times that show what are plainly leopards and tigers pulling the chariots of the goddesses and gods.

Some of the 19th scholars suggested that Freya's chariot may not have been pulled by north European cats (not even the awesome Norwegian Forest Cats) but by big cats, based on rumors passed on by traders and storytellers who moved between the Mediterranean and northern Europe. It's a long journey but cat power may have made it possible.

Freya's chariot of cats still lives today, as you can see in the clip. This would be a "Quintiga".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lceSo10_d9Q

The wind in my hair

And one group of stars.

Hard to get home this autumn.

Sigmund Freud

Was easily annoyed.

Such a big grouch

When he had you on the couch.

When I'm burned

All the winds will fight

over my ashes.

Reading glasses

Expand your horizons.

Don't laugh at the chicken

It knows best.

You're on.

Then you're gone.