Demon Test Results: Polecat... great!

A Polecat

You scored 63 Need for Chaos, 10 Drive to Lead, 33 Extroversion, and 42 Logic!

"Your daemon would most likely manifest itself in the form of a polecat. The specie and the size of it is dependant upon the ranges of the scores and other factors, most notably geographical area, as a daemon is likely to take the form of an animal native to your area. Someone with a higher need for chaos may have a daemon manifest itself in exotic or strange looking species; while someone with more extroverted would have a larger more imposing daemon— such as a pine martin." 

I chose the most exotic looking one i could find on the web, thanks! 

According to the Columbia University Press, a Polecat is a carnivorous mammal of the weasel family. The name refers especially to the common Old World polecat, Mustela putorius, found in wooded areas of N Eurasia and N Africa. Similar to weasels, but larger and with longer fur, polecats grow to nearly 2 ft (60 cm) long, including the 6-in. (15-cm) tail. The fur, sold under the name fitch and much used in the early 19th cent., is dark brown above, with yellow patches on the ears and face. The belly, feet, and tail are nearly black. Like other members of its family, polecats have a scent gland under the tail which emits a fetid secretion used for territorial marking; the gland is most active when the animals are alarmed. Solitary, nocturnal animals, they spend the day in dens. They feed on small animals and eggs and are quite destructive to poultry and small game. Farmers have exterminated polecats in many areas, but they still survive in wilder places over most of their former range. Domesticated strains of polecat have been developed for hunting; these are called ferret, a name also applied to a wild polecat species of North America. The marbled polecat and striped polecat (see zorilla) are related animals of Africa and W Asia. The skunk, a New World member of the weasel family, is called polecat in some regions. Polecats are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Carnivora, family Mustelidae.

The Painful Realization of Dust

This is from Chapter 14 of The Island of Dr. Moreau, I know I am obsessing over this author a bit, but I couldn't help but look at the word dust in a new light. It seems that this dust whether it be cosmic or magic is all in the lens of the viewer.. 

"Oh, but it is such a little thing! A mind truly opened to what science has to teach must see that it is a little thing. It may be that save in this little planet, this speck of cosmic dust, invisible long before the nearest star could be attained - it may be, I say, that nowhere else does this thing called pain occur. But the laws we feel our way towards - Why, even on this earth, even among living things, what pain is there?"

As he spoke he drew a little penknife from his pocket, opened the smaller blade, and moved his chair so that I could see his thigh. Then, choosing the place deliberately, he drove the blade into his leg and withdrew it.

"No doubt," he said, "you have seen that before. It does not hurt a pin-prick. But what does it show? The capacity for pain is not needed in the muscle, and it is not placed there, - is but little needed in the skin, and only here and there over the thigh is a spot capable of feeling pain. Pain is simply our intrinsic medical adviser to warn us and stimulate us. Not all living flesh is painful; nor is all nerve, not even all sensory nerve. There's no tint of pain, real pain, in the sensations of the optic nerve. If you wound the optic nerve, you merely see flashes of light, - just as disease of the auditory nerve merely means a humming in our ears. Plants do not feel pain, nor the lower animals; it's possible that such animals as the starfish and crayfish do not feel pain at all. Then with men, the more intelligent they become, the more intelligently they will see after their own welfare, and the less they will need the goad to keep them out of danger. I never yet heard of a useless thing that was not ground out of existence by evolution sooner or later. Did you? And pain gets needless.

"Then I am a religious man, Prendick, as every sane man must be. It may be, I fancy, that I have seen more of the ways of this world's Maker than you, - for I have sought his laws, in my way, all my life, while you, I understand, have been collecting butterflies. And I tell you, pleasure and pain have nothing to do with heaven or hell. Pleasure and pain - bah! What is your theologian's ecstasy but Mahomet's houri in the dark? This store which men and women set on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon them, - the mark of the beast from which they came! Pain, pain and pleasure, they are for us only so long as we wriggle in the dust.

Dostovsky On God

In a letter to V. A. Alekseev written in June, 1876, Dostovsky wrote: 

By the way: remember the contemporary theories of Darwin and others concerning the descent of man from monkeys. Without engaging in any theories, Christ explicitly declares that in man, in addition to an animal world, there is also a spiritual world. And what of it? What difference does it make where man is descended from..., God still breathed the breath of life into him. 

6 Degrees of Separation, Kevin Spacey Game

I'm no good with movie actors, but I once had a philosophy teacher who was full of himself ( imagine that) and would always tell us how he was so damn good at this game. The idea is to link Kevin Spacey with any other actor  in the world in less than six movies. If you look at all the movies and actors Kevin Spacey has worked with, it becomes clear, if you know your movies and actors, that he can be linked to basically any actor in the world. (eg.. Spacey worked with that smokin hot chick in American Beauty. She worked with that dog from blah blah. and then you have wild card movies like Oceans 11 and Charlie Wilson's War, you get the idea)

Check out the link

What the $#!@ Do We Know?

Has anyone seen this film? The rabbit hole is used as a sort of port hole to view the world as we perceive it through another lens; the lens of the quantum physicist. It's a little sciency but the lens is worth looking through even if it's just for minute. 

The Down the Rabbit Hole version of this film is very similar to the first version(What the Bleep do We Know?). I would say it is more much like a second edition of a book which is constantly tweaked for accuracy as theories are disproved, kind of like the Origin of Species, perhaps one of the least enjoyable texts still read by millions of future science types.

H.G Wells (in The Island of Dr. Moreau) on Preservation of Instinct and a Bluebeard reference.

In class on Friday (11/17?) we began to speak on the topic of instinct (and self sacrifice). I found this excerpt from H.G Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau rather fitting. 

"A pig may be educated. The

 mental structure is even less determinate than the bodily. In our growing science of hypnotism we find the promise of a possibility of replacing old inherent instincts by new suggestions, grafting upon or replacing the inherited fixed ideas. Very much indeed of what we call moral education is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct: pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion." 

This short spat is exclaimed to Prendick upon the explanation of exactly what is happening on the island  by Dr. Moreau. 

It seems Pullman has solved the problem of repression of the instincts with his use of demons. lucky for me I have quite the demon of my own; I introduce the all powerful, bird woundin', mouse catchin', allergy symptomatic, white and fluffy yet viscious Bill Cartwright(above).

It seems H. G. Wells enjoy poking fun at some of the same concepts,  an early influence on Pullman?

Bluebeard Reference:

In the beginning of the story, just after his arrival on the mysterious island Prendick is shown the quarters which he is welcomed to seek shelter. One of the doors must remain locked and is said to hide a "kind of Bluebeard's chamber". As it turns out, the entire story is a displacement of the Bluebeard story. The books theme is based on the controversial vivisection of animals and the problems that ensue in such experiments. The whole island is a Bluebeard's chamber we find in the end...

PULLMAN'S ALETHIOMETER SYMBOLS DECRIPTED

Symbol-Primary,Secondary meanings

Hourglass- time- death, change...

Sun-day- Authority, truth...

Alpha and Omega-finality- process, inevitability...

Marionette- Obedience- Submission, grace...

Serpent-evil- Guile, natural wisdom...

Cauldron (crucible) -alchemy- craft, achieved wisdom..

Anchor-hope- steadfastness, prevention...

Helmet- War- Protection, Narrow vision...

Beehive-productive-work, sweetness, light...

Moon-chastity-mystery, the uncanny...

Madonna- Motherhood- the feminine, worship...

apple-sin- knowledge, vanity...

Bird- The soul (the demon) -Spring, marriage

Bread-nourishment-christ, sacrifice...

Ant-Mechanical work,-diligence, tedium...

Bull -earth- power, honesty...

Candle-Fire- Faith, learning...

Cornucopia-Wealth,- Autumn, hospitality...

Chameleon-Air-greed, patience...

thunderbolt-inspiration-Fate, chance...

Dolphin- Water- resurrection, succor...

Walled garden- Nature- innocence, order...

Globe-politics- sovereignty, fame...

Sword-Justice-Fortitude, the church...

Griffin-treasure- watchfulness, courage...

Horse-Europe- journeys, fidelity...

Camel- Asia- summer, perseverance...

Elephant-Africa-charity, continence...

Crocodile (cayman)- America-repacity, enterprise...

Baby- the future-malleability, helplessness...

Compass-Measurement-mathematics, science...

Lute-poetry-rhetoric, philosophy...

Tree-Firmness- Shelter, Fertility...

Wild man- wild man- The masculine, lust...

Owl-Night- winter, fear...

Bluebeard Misplacement

Dear Diary, 

On Friday, I went to worked with my father in Koh Yao Noi. e owns Mountain Skills Rock Climbing  School and instructs mostly westerners. That morning he had a large group and was down a guide so he asked my sister an I to come along and help out and entertain the bunch. I do  not much like this sport nor the tourists often involved but my father was in a desperate crunch. 

While my sister and I grabbed enough gear for all of the customers, my father went over the waiver and collected the money. From the back room of the shop, I could here the voices of what would turn out to be American football players as thy paid their girls from the previous night and said their good-byes. I knew this trip would be a disaster, but before I could protest to my father, he entered the gear room and appologized for the rude men. He knew I had no patience for this type, but always encouraged me to hang around the shop to meet his rich customers. 

We drove to the base of the climb in a large blue van with a stenciled logo which I helped paint a few years ago. In the van, I sat next to one of the huge disgusting men, who appeared to be the leader of his group. He wore gold rings and  large gold necklaces with a giant medallion on one. His wrist was covered in bracelets of diamond. His fat belly was pouring over onto my tiny frame as sweat from his many crevices began to soak through his tee shirt which had the logo of a bears head. 

I looked toward my sister, who was sitting on his other side, with a grimace of disgust and she gave me a dirty look and rolled her eyes. The tow of them were chatting and seemed to have hit it off. My sister has always been a ushover for men wit money. They were already making plans to visit the clubs that night. I was horrified and even more so that my father supported her hopes of marrying a rich man regardless.  

When we arrived at Railay Beach, I must wanted to get through the day. I grabbed what gear I could and headed over to the wall. My father began his safety speech as I unraveled the climbing ropes. Soon after, I belayed my father has he demonstrated the climbing asect. As he quickly scaled the wall, I explained how the belay mechanism worked and how to control the weight of a fellow climber. Mean while, my sister and her new disgusting friend paid no attention and flirted obnoxiously. 

After we all climbed to the top, we walked the cliff band for about a half mile where wer would do an open -air repel, abseiling nearly two hundred feet to the ground below. I went first showing the technique and stressing again not to let go of the rope in the right hand. Everyone had rapped, I now waited for only my sister and her new friend as they eyed each other suggestively. Finally he had approached the edge, he started and before i knew, I heard my sister scream. I watched him let off his brake arm and grab the ropes above his head, exactly what my father and I told him not to do. Suddenly he gathered speed and started to fall very fast. The man fell to his death. The rope was covered in blood. 

Cinderella Moral

The Beauty of a woman is no lost treasure

Take a good look and you will understand without measure.

You can stop at her face or waste

look to her mind only with haste.

To be a beauty a girl can not rely on a fairy 

Or some other  mythology

If her face is aweful and her waste fat

Tell her to get healthy and fill the empty vat.

If she don't get to realization

She'll end up with some guy on probation. 

Keep your skin soft and learn some domestic skills

Problem is, an ugly face will give all the chills. 

But in the end we can thank God

For he made plastic surgeons to make you that hot bod.

I had a dream

I never understood how people can say "I don't dream". What allows us to remember dreams? Is it only when we come back into consciousness that we can remember a dream which was dreamt just before? I remember dreams just then. I often even have these dreams that are so fantastic that I will go back to sleep in an attempt to get back into that dream world which is ever so real. The mind can not distinguish the difference between dream state of mind and our conscious mind. What is real? What are the limits to reality?   Lots of the dreams that I remember seem to be on the sexual end.  I recall a dream I had about a week ago: I was in a city which I have never visited before. I remember walking down a brick road, the way I would imagine Boston I suppose. I remember the Hooters sign. Now I love Hooters Hot Wings. There is no better hot wing in the world. I order the hottest possible flavor, "Three Mile Island", named after a nuclear waste site, I believe. As I'm entering this Hooters I remember the sun was going down and there were three women, young to mid tweenties standing outside the place looking like they were posing for me. there were three of them, a Blonde, Brunette, and A Ginger. These girls were hot! full on Hooters calender material. The whole Hooters nine, short orange shorts, the lil white tee that shows something between the very low cut of short. Then I woke up, what does this mean? Is this the superficial person I have become?

The address below is a clip from a movie called What the Bleep Do We Know, Down the Rabbit Hole.   

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gleCy_kWDbQ 

This link will not actually take you to the clips from the film. simply type the words: What the bleep do we know, Rabbit Hole.

If Alcohol Can Do This to Pat, What Did Epilepsy Do to Dodgeson?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY7bxlwv1fQ