elevensies

Quirks of the calendar are certainly something to take notice of, especially when one considers how these days were ordained, pre-determined since the beginning of time, driven by calendar-reforms, the base of our numbers systems, and other events. Today, I read in the paper, an area, in Germany where it is also the Feast Day of Saint Martin when geese are rounded-up and devoured like turkeys on Thanksgiving for giving away the reluctant saint's whereabouts to Church authorities and children parade with paper lanterns, holding a nighttime vigil, brother and sister (twins) are celebrating their eleventh birthday. Patterns tend to rise above the din, but that's really a story in itself to mark this day.  What would your story be?

entente or cabbages and kings

Despite all the talk and headlines beguiling with strong language and hyperbole that is more fitting of events decades ago and lasting centuries, it cannot be said too often how European peace and integration, the common-currency too being part of that grand experiment, is a remarkable achievement, transcending very real and recent battlefield traditions that are not at all metaphorical. States and political personalities are still players but self-determination (brilliantly or dimly reflected in diplomacy and policy) and inclusiveness, not uneasy peace brokered by strategic marriages or segregated sentiment, have drafted this framework for stability and cooperation. Unpleasantries (Unannehmlichkeiten) aside, the potential loss or gain wagered on the success of the pact that is European identity and relevance, is not the kinetic energy that comes of this alliance and continued partnership. Whatever parts of this formula are not working, rather than racing and raging to support some other defunct system--a self-perpetuating and shared-delusion, members of the EU are unencumbered to change (independent and so far as greed and vanity allow) and resolve.

Financial speculation and prospecting are not ripping Europe asunder and stoking misgivings, as colourfully and graphically as the same headlines would portray these powers, but greed and fear, inelastic, make for short tempers in negotiation and would squarely remove protected and respected cultural differences to the immature tyranny of the stock markets--and the vision of the Treaty of Rome was not to replace sceptre, sword and mitre of kings with seigniorage and adoubement of banks. For Armistice Day, one should recall not only the difference between squabbling and war but also where we came from and where we want to go.

heurism or green fairy/blue tooth

9 November marks Inventors' Day (Tag der Erfinder) in the German Sprachraum. Perhaps coincidentally--perhaps not, the local's Swiss edition featured an article earlier in the week of Swiss inventions, which in addition to milk chocolate, the Helvetica font, and the Swiss army knife, include Velcro, LSD and absinthe. The occasion, purposed to encourage people to pursue their own ideas and remind people about the forgotten and unsung innovators, is observed on 9 November because of the birthday of Austrian actress and Erfinderin Hedy Lamarr, in recognition of her 1942 discovery of frequency hopping spread spectrum technique that eventually enabled the development of cellular telephony and Bluetooth technologies.

matchbox or go-go-gadget brella

Though it's not at all tempting, given the unpleasant and cramped interior and strange odours, to violate these rules and host a roller derby, there is an unloving notice on the outside wall of the lobby of our post-office stating that food and drink and roller blades are prohibited in that facility. I wonder if people still go skating--sometimes one sees older people with Nordic walking sticks (ski poles) zipping, slaloming along the trails but not so often, and one hardly ever encounters young people biking or skating outside the compulsion of a family outing. It's a little sad--the sign might as well say no hula-hooping and no pogo-balls as well--I think we've not only been kept too safe, with the occasional foray into extreme double-dutch or see-saw record-breaking attempt, coordinated via flash-mobs, but also gotten use to having nothing out of arm's reach and fully-integrated.  I ought to organize an impromptu kazoo evening of chamber music in the mailroom lobby and pogo-stick ballet.

a series of tubes

The presidents of Russia and of Germany, who are both overshadowed by their Premier and Chancellor respectively, symbolically opened the valve on the Nord Stream pipeline close to the community of Lubmin in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern near the Inlet of Griefswald. This installation will bring natural gas from the fields of Siberia directly to German and Western Europe.

Of course no one would tolerate an intrusive bulldozing through the region, but environ-mentalists are concerned that this addition along with other power-houses in the area could upset the delicate ecology of the surrounding Baltic Sea. Lubmin, I see, formerly constituted part of the monastic holdings of Cloister Eldena, whose ruins we visited last summer on our rambling adventures up and down the Ostsee coast. The beauty and history of this region is protected with more vehement sensibilities than those that survey the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (in Alaska, shortened to “anwar”) or the tar-sands of Canada, but recipients of this energy should not be complacent about the business at the far end of this pipeline, nor ignorant of the need for more and more power that is driving this arrangement. It is a strategic and clean partnership by all appearances that has been well engineered and executed, but both sides should still be mindful of the limits of these resources and the environment’s threshold of forgiveness and look towards new energy and technologies.

little golden book or mihi causas memora

Virgil’s epic the Aeneid, the founding story of the Roman Empire that began with a lieutenant’s escape from burning Troy, carrying his infant son, Ascanius, in his arms and his elderly father, Anchises on his back, as well as a bundle of household gods, wandering journey from Phrygia to Italy, battles with the Latins and eventual status as forbearer of the Roman people, presents a rich allegory, with some powerful, contemporary points of correspondence (for what it’s worth, as the latest tragedies are not, in the grander scheme of adventure and mythological, really all that legendary) with the current Greco-Roman marketplace.

It is remarkable how cultural tenants migrate and are adopted and re-imagined, like gods and heroes both transplanted and devised. The Church and State of the Romans is not just derivative of the culture and learning that the Greeks, nor it is a fair characterization that a Roman exodus realized the more perfect expression of Greek accomplishment. Art, artifice and traditions transmitted certainly do evolve and have become a frenzy of norms and nomos, but are more than just spillage, contagion and viral ideas. Money and trade tend to simplify and compartmentalize matters that have grown beyond all public bounds, yet are smaller and more personable as ever they were. Italy’s burgeoning crisis of confidence is not some impossible Hydra but rather nothing more than a relatively strong (third largest in Europe, compared to Greece, which has the industrial output of the German state of Hessen) economy called stagnant because growth (exports, consumer demand, investment sleight-of-hand) has failed to keep pace with borrowing’s legacy of interest payments. Endless regulation and stimulus (coaxing, invention—if honest) cannot do much for contentedness and thrift. That chimera, a new mythological foe, is something that a lot people the world are coming to face but it is no burden borne over the Aegean.

heresy or wash your mouth out with soap

Generally, I don’t ascribe to the latest fads or scares in health and hygiene, though I do tend to be skeptical about the utility over marketing and salesmanship of most products and I am usually captivated by the ideas that present reduction and disenchantment with conventional wisdom and the vaunted over-the-counter industries. Some time ago, H shared with me a tract circulating the internet, I’m sure, about tooth care, and I took the prescribed regiment rather seriously because the researcher (who I am sure could also share a lot of conspiracy theories about the fluorine in tap water—I could as well) was not trying to sell anything or get one to radically change his or her routine, like freeganism or the anti-soaps league.

I tried and stuck with it, not be too vain about my teeth and questioning if anything should be brilliantly and unnaturally white—I found the tobacco and coffee stains tolerable, but since I exchanged red wine for beer and tried to combat the discolouration with aggressive, daily flossing, I could tell that I was doing damage to my gums and enamel. The researcher maintains that the teeth can heal themselves (we tend to forget that one’s biology is mostly smarter than we are, despite our micro-managing of the affairs of our mouths and skin) and the biggest obstacle against repair is angry teeth-brushing with tooth-paste. The glycerin in all toothpaste, which makes it foam up, sort of suffocates one’s mouth because it does not rinse away. Instead, the researcher recommends that one use a bar of plain soap and take vitamin C and calcium supplements. That getting rid of a chemical coating might make all the difference struck me at first like the fallacy of moisturizers for one’s skin--nothing of the fancy ingredients and nutrients are absorbed into one’s skin, nor would we really want them to be. I must say that my gums were very sensitive at first and I had a few painful mouth ulcers at first, and I wasn’t seeing results after just two weeks, as promised, but six weeks later, my gums do look healthier with no latent pain and the stains have been bleached away to a large extend, even some of the swaths of decay look like they have sloughed off. Dental health is important and hopefully people won’t follow quackery, but as with most matters of taking care of oneself, there is no magic potion and a lot of what is being peddled does little more than mask underlying problems and perpetuates the business of health-care.