Portentous?

When I opened my blog this morning the counter of  how many visitors the blog has had since I began posting to it stood at 2011.

Yet another C.E. time label

Having no original thoughts for this morning I have stolen the following image from a fellow blogger whose apparent preference for anonymity I shall respect.

 Thank you Andrew!

Apple MacOutatutch!

I am passing through a period of making unreasonable changes to my way of being; something to do with my age, a late-age crisis perhaps. My most recent rather pointless change is to have abandoned ‘Windows’ in favour of ‘Mac’. While these two systems have much in common, as far my needs are concerned, they have a number of irritating differences the greatest of which is that my internet connection here, my ‘Dongle’ will not work with my new MacBook!
The ‘Dongle’ connection has always been temperamental which can be very frustrating. It is nonetheless miraculous that with this gadget I have been able, albeit only on ‘good’ days, to communicate with the world from this beautiful but isolated hillside. I understand that the ‘Dongle’ problem can be solved by buying and plugging in a go-between gadget from the Apple Store. Meanwhile, and being far from an Apple Store ‘meanwhile’ could be a long while, my Mac contact with the world beyond my home is dependent on my visiting one or another of the wi-fi cafes in the local towns; a far from disagreeable chore!
It is amazing how quickly an expectation of instant communication has become normal. Up until about a dozen years ago, to communicate at all other than by letter, I was obliged to go to a telephone company office where I would queue for a vacant booth from which to make a call! The cellphone revolution put an end to all of that and now the internet is rapidly displacing my cellphone as a primary means of keeping contact with folk in the outside world.
Each day, as I learn more of my Mac’s foibles, I am increasingly enjoying using it. It is faster, has a larger screen and keyboard than its predecessor, and runs for hours (Up to ten so the manufacturers claim) on one battery charge. Using it as I am now in an unlit room, I am happy to have bought it if only for the backlit keyboard.
Until I have dongle and Mac united I shall send my posts to Sensateman by e-mail so it is likely that, during the immediate future, posts will arrive there intermittently and in batches. But how material possessions spawn the want of more! Already, if my Dongle is to continue to be of use to me, I have to visit the Apple Store and so much better do my photographs look on the Mac that I have begun researching cameras with which, so I convince myself, I might create better images.
My late-age crisis is seeming to deepen by the day! 

Rumination on a murmuration

Since the beginning of this month I have been seeing huge clouds, murmurations as they are called, of starlings.  All of these sightings were fascinating but none equalled the spectacle I witnessed around midday last Thursday.  Over open ground between three local villages, Harakopio, Yamia and Falanthi, an untold number of starlings had gathered together to form a massive abstract image in the sky.  As I gazed at it, this remarkable three-dimensional aerial image constantly altered its position, shape and form, its infinitely changing outline remaining perfectly sharp and clear, like that of a a drop of water moving over a greasy surface.
At close quarters both the wing beats of these huge gatherings of birds and their voluble chatter combine to make a deafening cacophony but on Thursday morning the distance between me and the murmuration rendered it strangely silent causing me to wonder how a musical transcription of this apparently chaotic but perfectly smooth edged, infinitely changing half-tone form might sound.  Furthermore as I stood transfixed by that awe inspiring mysterious aerial ballet I wondered, if viewing the known universe from a point beyond it proportional to the distance I stood from the starling cloud, I should see that as a similarly irregularly regular, chaotic yet organised cloud of infinitely mobile living matter.  A metaphor for my being perhaps?

The birth of Literature according to Nabokov

"Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf" came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying "wolf, wolf" and there was no wolf behind him."
— Vladimir Nabokov (Lectures on Literature)
Thanks to my neighbor, PoetessJoanne Kyger, for unearthing this quote.  (which I stole from Lloyd's blog.)

Rumination on a murmuration

Since the beginning of this month I have been seeing huge clouds, murmurations as they are called, of starlings. All of these sightings were fascinating but none equalled the spectacle I witnessed around midday last Thursday. Over open ground between three local villages, Harakopio, Yamia and Falanthi, an untold number of starlings had gathered together to form a massive abstract image in the sky. As I gazed at it, this remarkable three-dimensional aerial image constantly altered its position, shape and form, its infinitely changing outline remaining perfectly sharp and clear, like that of a a drop of water moving over a greasy surface.
At close quarters both the wing beats of these huge gatherings of birds and their voluble chatter combine to make a deafening cacophony but on Thursday morning the distance between me and the murmuration rendered it strangely silent causing me to wonder how a musical transcription of this apparently chaotic but perfectly smooth edged, infinitely changing half-tone form might sound. Furthermore as I stood transfixed by that awe inspiring mysterious aerial ballet I wondered, if viewing the known universe from a point beyond it proportional to the distance I stood from the starling cloud, I should see that as a similarly irregularly regular, chaotic yet organised cloud of infinitely mobile living matter. A metaphor for my being perhaps?

Interpreting the meaning of success

I have stolen the following story from Paulo Coehlo.  The first time I heard it, some years ago, the hero was a greek fisherman and his advisor a greek who had returned home materially wealthy after years of working in the United States.

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.
As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.
The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”
The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”
“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.
“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.
The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”
The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.
“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”

The fisherman continues, “And after that?”
The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”
The fisherman asks, “And after that?”
The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”

The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”


This story may help to explain something about the greek attitude to why we have been blessed with life.

A camera or two houses plus change?

I have been considering moving on and up from my pocket point-and-shoot job to a 'through the lens' viewfinder camera and have little idea of where to begin choosing something that will best serve my purpose.  Knowing Leica to be a reliable camera manufacturer I began my research by typing that name into Google.  Whether or not the latest 'special edition' Leica would suit my purpose, at a few pounds less than £20,000 its cost is rather outside the most irresponsible limits of my camera buying budget.  Twenty thousand quid!  For a camera?  Leica do offer less expensive models but even those are considerably beyond my modest ideas of price.
Coincidentally I have received, from a friend presently tarrying near Troy,   an e-mail which included a link about a newish, spacious and conveniently appointed house in Bulgaria for just £8,500.
It is a crazy world we are living in!
My friend has asked me to pass on the following link to the property in Bulgaria, here is probably as good a pitch as any:   http://www.magbaztravels.com/content/view/1113/30/