Tiny piece of ornithology

Merhaba. :) You have read the interview with Mr Kemal? And now you are a bit curious about what's a dodo? Welcome then, to a tiny ornithology lecture. Thanks to leo, here we go:

Main Entry: do·do

Pronunciation: \ˈdō-(ˌ)dō\
Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural dodoes or dodos

Etymology: Portuguese doudo, from doudo silly, stupid

Date: 1628

1 a: an extinct heavy flightless bird (Raphus cucullatus syn. Didus ineptus of the family Raphidae) of the island of Mauritius that was larger than a turkey and was related to the pigeon b: an extinct flightless bird (Raphus solitarius) of the island of Réunion similar to and closely related to the dodo

2 a: one hopelessly behind the times b: a stupid person .

*

In case you have any further questions, we - i.e. Tetrapilotomos and I - will be pleased and do our best in the hope to be able to widen your horizon. Yakında görüşmek üzere? :)

Capita Turciensis

Recently - I was just reading the last chapter of The Bastard of Istanbul - I heard Tetrapilotomos chuckle, which induced following dialogue:

Yes?

Blimey, no wonder there's a steady increase of population in Turkey.

What are you busy with, Tetrapilotomos?

Merowinger time.

I see. And what does this have to do with the population growth in Turkey?

Do you know what aureum caput regni means?

Golden head of the imperium, or so?

Not bad. And caput orbis?

Head of the world.

Not bad. And what's a colloquial German word for broken?

Kaputt. Spelled with one t less in English it means a) utterly finished, defeated, or destroyed and b) unable to function.

Not bad. And do you know what a condom is being called in Turkish.

No idea.

Kaput.

And thus spake Molly

Listen, watch & enjoyce. :)

Yes, it's for you, Poldy

Novel finished, Sean?

Why?

It's June 16th.

Ah, is it?

Not even a tiny little 10.000 words essay?

Did you ever see a middle finger erecting?

Wouldn't you call anybody impolite were they to answer a question by a question?

Yes.

So let's start again. Novel finished, Sean?

The prudent hen does not cackle, before the egg is laid. Why do you ask?

It's June 16th.

Yes.

And? Any tribute to Henry Flower Esq.?

Yes.

Where?

Here.


Update:
Actually, I thought ...

Come on, Tetrapilotomos. Could any man's words surpass a woman's whispers of love?

Ever noticed that Molly ...

I know what you are going to ask. To answer your counter question, Jove: Yes, but ...

But?

...

I see. Time the hen's laying the egg.

Yes.

Caught bed-handed

Now, could any biped get angry when a tomcat called Schrödinger would snap at the chance to at least once nestle down in a freshly made bed?

Wishing everybody a splendid Sunday. And why not in bed? :)

Just a thought 02

When one's writing is not more worth
than one's not writing,
one should rather not write.

Sudden and unexpected

Tireless and conspiciously, never calling sick, never complaining long hours she'd serve me in two milenniums, reliably and to my full* satisfaction. Only the other day I had told her it would be nice worked she for me until 2066.
Being 113, I'd move then to a dwelling six feet under, and she - having reached the retirement age of 67 could enjoy the evening of her life.
But alas, despite first aid and emergency operation, suddenly and unexpected yesterday night my dear old mouse - I used to call her Whitey - lost her vital functions.



In deep respect I asked her successor to be in black. - I call her Electra.

* not fullest. Fuller than full is not possible, would you agree?

Hiatus interruptus

Ladies and gentlemen,
Bayanlar, Baylar,
Signoras e Signori,
Señoras y Señores,
Mesdames et Messieurs*,
Friends,

worrying what might be the long-term consequences of such a hiatus, I thought it's better to decide in favour of a hiatus interruptus.

May either those forgive me who would have loved this hiatus to never end, and consequently feel deeply dissatified, and those who felt ... well, let's say irritated. :)

I was irritated, myself, as I did not intend to have a break. It just happened, or rather I let it happen. Even more strange: I did not miss blogging (very much).
Why? Don't know. Summing up all possible reasons would probably take too long, and boring you is one of the last things I wish to do.

So let me just thank those of you who left kind comments and / or encouraged me via email.

And now, may this beginning, too, bear a special magic. :)


* to please la curieuse (see comments) who would obviously prefer this to Madames et Monsieurs :)

Death still a master from Germany

Before starting blogging last June, and thinking of the last post to end this 'adventure' the previous entry was in my mind.

And yes! It should have been my last post.

Look at the title above. What's the news? The 'still'. The 'still' - ha ha ha ...

Oh well, while I am trying to find an article from 1988, where one could read which German firms had sold some essentials Saddam Hussein needed to launch the Halabja poison gas attack you may read this and form an opinion, yourself.

Back?
And?
Did you appreciate the terms 'Defense Exporter' and 'military goods'?

Ah, language. Talleyrand is (often) said to have coined the phrase 'Speech / Language was given man to hide / disguise his thoughts'.

Indeed? Let's have a look if there's anybody else who said / wrote this before Monsieur Talleyrand 'coined' this phrase.
Ah, Molière. And Voltaire. So, ...
Oh, Dante, too.
So, Dante was the first.
Uh, what's that? Dionysius ... Cato ... Plutarch ...

This reminds me of that Patrick Kavanagh once being praised as a 'lousy poet' is said to have countered: 'Aren't we all since Homer?'

Which again is a solace for any lousy blogger putting too many thoughts (and too many links) into one posting and thus (deliberately) trying to provoke his readers to make use of their grey matter.

Back to the beginning.

It was Paul Celan who, in his Death Fugue, coined the phrase 'death is a master from Germany'.

And since, German politicans are trying to make the world believe Germans are trustworthy peace brokers.

Still ... [trying to keep contenance] ...

the peace of the night.

Greedy after gossip?

Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, 'What's the news?' as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. 'Pray, tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe' - and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

For my part [...] I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steam-boat blown up, or one cow ran over the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter - we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications. To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was such a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the foreign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure - news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelvemonth or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or Life in the Woods, 1854

Dear Mum

Dear Mum, I know you are always there
To help and guide me with all your care,
You nursed and fed me and made me strong
To face the world and all its wrong.

What can I write to you this day
For a line or two would never pay
For care and time you gave to me
Through long hard years unceasingly.

How you found strength I do not know
How you managed I'll never know,
Struggling and striving without a break
Always there and never late.

You prayed for me and loved me more
How could I ask for anymore,
And reared me up to be like you
But I haven't a heart as kind as you.

A guide to me in times of plight,
A princess like a star so bright,
For life would never have been the same
If I hadn't learnt of what small things came.

So forgive me, Mum, just a little more,
For not loving you so much before,
For life and love you gave to me
I give my thanks for eternity.

Bobby Sands (March 9th, 1954 - May 5th, 1981)

Modern Times

It is said we live in modern times,
In the civilised year of 'seventy-nine',
But when I look around, all I see,
Is modern torture, pain, and hypocrisy.

In modern times little children die,
They starve to death, but who dares ask why?
And little girls without attire,
Run screaming, napalmed, through the night afire.

And while fat dictators sit upon their thrones,
Young children bury their parents' bones,
And secret police in the dead of the night,
Electrocute the naked woman out of sight.

In the gutter lies the black man, dead,
And where the oil flows blackest, the street runs red,
And there was He who was born and came to be,
But lived and died without liberty.

As the burocrats, speculators and presidents alike,
Pin on their dirty, stinking, happy smiles tonight,
The lonely prisoner will cry out from within his tomb,
And tomorrow's wretch will leave its mother's womb!

Bobby Sands, died May 5th, 1981

Just a thought

When pain's the hell
the absence of pain
is heaven.


Wishing a heavenly weekend.