Wednesday 6 October 1999
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Pic of the day: Autumn scene by the roadside near Chaos Node. ... Was home sick today, and pitied myself since nobody else does. :) It wasn't actually all that bad, though I was a bit scared early in the day. Luckily, I felt better after coughing up a few hairballs. Later in the day I took the liberty to sleep a few minutes a few times. I rarely get to do that on the job any more. The sun was shining, and my apartment grew hot. It is incredible that it is now the 6th of October, in Norway. To quote a Dane a few summers back: "If this is the greenhouse effect, then by God give us more of it!" Of course, my Californian readers are likely to disagree strongly with this. I have a theory (well, it may not be quite serious enough to be called a theory). I say that the perceived heating of the world stems mostly from the fact that people are moving to hotter parts of the globe. Americans are moving to California and florida, from New England and such. Norwegians are moving en masse from the northern parts (which are northern indeed, north of the polar circle) to the south coast. And elderly Europeans are moving to the mediterranean coasts. No wonder they find that it's not snowing like it did every Christmas when they were kids. ... As the day wore on, I played Daggerfall. As the computer grew hot from playing Daggerfall, I decided to wash some clothes. I found a shirt that had somehow lost a button. Now, remember that I have moved largely into Marlboro Classics and Sand and the like, much more sturdy stuff than the flimsy unknown brands made in Huangdong. (No offense to any Huangdongnese readers, but that's how it was back then.) This was indeed a Marlboro Classics shirt, and it had still lost a button. Or not quite. I had picked it up. Now to re-attach it to the shirt. Summoning up my ancient skills, I went to find a needle and thread. The thread was fairly easy to spot, in my bedroom commode. I knew the needles should be there too. I removed the broken flashlight. I removed the family size pack of combs. I removed the carrying case for the HP handheld computer. I removed two sets of glasses (spectacles), neatly tucked in their leather futterals. Still no sight of the needles. Only under two music cassettes of Jim Reeves did I finally find them. Obviously it's been a while.Oh no! I have just admitted that I had Jim Reeves cassettes in my bedroom. I hope Superwoman doesn't read this. The chill of those scornful remarks would be enough to preserve a whole cooked turkey for days. I opened my cassette player, to the left of my monitor. Not to put in Jim Reeves cassettes, mind you. The cassette in the player is marked "Autumn 87, Beach & Co." Whatever that means. Probably the name of one band of artists? It seems to have been a while everywhere I turn. Looks like I'm growing old. Time to shave half my head and color the rest of my hair neon green, and wear violet synthetic silk clothes. In other words, it's time to panic. Help! Help! I'm growing old!I just started the cassette player. It still works, having been stored dry and at room temperature. It started to play an instrumental melody that seemed familiar. Oh yes. "Silver threads among the gold." As James Redfield use to say: "Trust synchronicity!" Have y'all considered how often strange coincidences tend to crop up with music? I remember another old favorite song of mine. It was "Why worry?" with Dire Straits. A simple, beautiful melody. I became aware of it near the end of the Cold War, when the Norwegian National Broadcasting played it immediately after the news one day. (I tend to turn the radio on for the news, and have obviously done so for decades.) What was particular was that the topic of the news that day was a large, unannounced Soviet fleet maneuver near the Norwegian border. Why worry? Anyway, I fell in love with that song. (I can fall in love, obviously, just not with humans...) I got the music casette, and played it on my walkman again and again. In fact, it was probably the reason why I bought a CD player. Playing the same song again and again is so much easier with a CD. Years later, I took the cassette to a workplace where I was doing some programming. After playing that particular song, I turned off the cassette and turned on the radio. Which was playing "Why worry" ... the second time in my life I heard that song on radio.But the most literal synchronicity was probably with that famous intro song, "Circle of Life" from the film Lion King. I had hooked on my discman for a walk, locked my door, put on my tiny earphones, and the expected melody was filling my eardrums. I fumbled to adjust the volume, and suddenly noticed a rather important point: I had not started the CD player. The music came from the neighbor's house, where they were playing "Circle of Life" very loudly, starting just at the moment that I had thought about playing that same melody, so seamlessly that I actually believed that I had turned the player on. ... OK, the button is securely fastened. It should stay in place "till kingdom come" as they say in English. (Or is it American?) Of course, that might not be all that long. "The kingdom of Heaven does not come in such a way that it can be seen with the eyes" claimed its supposed ruler. "It is inside you." Then again, are not all kingdoms? Look at Earth from space. The lines on our maps are not there. OK, Australia is pretty much the way it used to be. But there are no borderlines between Norway and Sweden, between USA and Mexico, or India and Pakistan. It's all in our minds. Someone ventured to claim recently that our century will not be remembered for its world wars and its concentration camps, but for the first pictures of Earth from space, and the dawn of a global consciousness. I think this is correct - if there is someone to remember it at all. And I personally think there will be.Recently on one of the journal mailing lists, a diarist from Malaysia announced her presence. Now, the funny thing, it is on the same Canadian server (crosswinds.net) where I have most of my site. And I am Norwegian. I had probably not known the capital of Malaysia if I had not been drawing maps of the country for a school assignment 25 years ago. (Despite them having the coolest name of a capital I've ever heard.) OK, here is the link to malaysian postcards. Enjoy! |