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/

New Year: Sunrise

This winter solstice happened, according to anthropotime, close to midnight GMT last night.  Here we are two hours ahead of GMT.  The Greek sun was at its most southerly declination at close to two o'clock this morning making this, the 22nd December, the first day of our new year.
This morning, unusually, cloud hid from me the wonderful  spectacle of the rising sun , denying me one of my many daily joys, but I saw the sun's light and know there is promise of more to come.  

Murmuration at Falanthi

From whence? To where? And thence? Why?

An inconsonant affair

I am returned!
After a trying month of struggling to make a fresh start with Typepad I have abandoned her as casually and heartlessly as I abandoned this blog a month ago.  My abandonment of Blogger was reckless and unreasonable but my abandonment of Typepad has, I believe, some justification.  During the month I spent with her I gave her a good deal of my time and patience, largely without response.  Furthermore she seemed to be determined to prevent the cyber-chums with whom I had built comfortable relationships through Blogger from having anything to do with me.   Fortunately for me some of those chums are more determined than she, I am grateful to them for bringing me to such senses that are left to me and to precipitate my return to blog hereafter with Blogger.