Personal Blogs

Life, A User's Manual, by Georges Perec

I've often heard of this book but never read it. Glad I didn't before, because it means more to me now.

Two thirds to go, but summarized

A Parisian apartment block appears as a doll's house, but with the lives of inhabitants minutely described (unlike a real doll's house).

At the same time it's a chessboard, perched on a jigsaw puzzle.

The moving part is the lives described and the sympathy shown.

I was surprised by all this. I'd really like to know how other people react to the book. Please write in.

... where I write about visual perception and matters to do with disability and my personal experience of it.

If you are interested you can visit partialinsight.wordpress.com

You knew I was lying.

Cried the liveforeverbird.

You knew. You knew.

... is about vision and what it's like to lose part of it:

http://partialinsight.wordpress.com

It's winter now

Our warm feeling for war

Dismays me more than ever.

It's easy now

Living with a bunch of ghosts

Except when it rains.

Old man

Why do you still keep the big plates for the winter feast?

Time.

After the rain

The stickleback

Came back up the stream again

And the hedgehog to the lane.

I dislike the booted

gardener crushing snails.

But applaud the thrush.

Spring

First blossom petals,

On my remaining hair.

Spring again!

A  You got it!  Same middle name.

Now here are Netrebko and Villazon in a famous performance.  I wish I'd been there.

The connection with my post before last is - same singing gene.

And that's why birds sing too, and we think of it as song.

But do mice laugh?  Did tyrannosauruses sing?

Did you know that mice sing, a bit like birds?  Of course they are very high sopranos, higher than bats, so for us to hear them the song has to be artifically lowered in pitch.

Click here
Audio player: audioS1.mp3

(needs Quicktime)

Read more here

Take a stick of spaghetti.  Grasp the ends, one in each hand, and bend the stick until it breaks.  How many pieces?

Go on, try the experiment, was that what you expected?

[You may decide not to try the next variation in your own home though.]

What about a sheet of lasagne?