National archetype

Krampus is one name for what the Bavarians around Munich call Ruprecht and the Czechs call Cert (diacritic missing but pronounced as one syllable, ch-eh-r-t). I have been fascinated with the fascination here with Cert and his devil's horns. I swear the Czechs constantly call up this archetype.

The idea of Ruprecht (without horns) and Cert (with horns) (I have lived in both places they haunt) is that he, this archetype, is the dark sidekick of St. Nicholas who visits small children at home or at school in early December. The dark one is dressed like the devil with black and shabby clothes and coal-smudged face. In Germany he even brings pieces of coal indicating the reward reserved for naughty children. The German one actually threatens by making noise, bashing a long switch to the floor or ground, and so on. Germans! The Czech one merely attends the saint, as far as I have observed. I am sure there are variations galore in this corner of Europe, but that is the idea: scare the little buggers into behaving.

My fascination is that no matter what time of year, this pair of horns appears in the Czech lands--women, men, children and in the imagery one can see during the course of just living and being here. I think there is something to this . . . I point out to Czech acquaintances they live in the fish bowl swimming as fish; whereas, I am the outsider, a witness, and can observe more objectively. My arguments never hold water on this subject with what can't be seen by one living in the culture.

At a farmer's market last fall, one of the vendors was wearing the horns. And on the way to the market, a billboard advertising something like insurance or banking, there she was, a model dressed to the nines with the red horns. Too sexy to be threatening, but nonetheless. Perhaps it's like the yellow car. Once you notice one, there are countless yellow cars.

But I swear. It is an image and ornament everywhere. Perhaps I should become more scientific about my hypothesis, which dates from my first years, early 90s, in the Czech Republic. Would locals then believe me? Nah.

Now I see a movie is out with another twist on the archetype. Krampus. It looks cute but I don't think historically accurate per the traditions observed around here, Bohemia and Bavaria.

Moving on a bit, because I took a shower and got to thinking. _Devil_ is _lived_ spelled backwards, and the joy and growth and evolution and sex that one word may represent is an opposite to repression (arrestation?) devolution, degeneracy, bad stuff, taboo. And of course, the old cuckold joke, which persists even today in places like  Italy. All those cornettoes and hand gesture referring to same, what else, taboo sex? Also of course, we can't forget the Czech word for black, černý. And then there is char-coal. I'm kind of tempting myself with riff-type free association, but I will let you take it from here. Except to say when/if you visit in these parts, a key to Czech culture is "naughty but nice".

Describes Czech women, don't it? Shhh! Whisper not a word I said that.

Good Muther, good night

[Along with an Easter gift, a personal headlamp, for my grandson.]

Yeah!
for Cruz

A little light to put on your head,
so you can say, "Good Muther, good night,"
and later sneak-read cosy in bed.

Or you and sis can explore about
without any fear--the dark hates light.
Because there's nothing like going out!



[Along with an Easter gift, a pocket notebook, for my granddaughter.]

Beddy bye
for Lola

Here's a little book
you can read when you're twenty.
Yes, empty right now
but you know there is plenty
of things that you do,
and things that just happen
worth noting and making a note.
So start now--everything's ready.
Life won't stand still
for children before beddy.

Bayesian probability

It's [Bayesian probability] an engine for evidence. It is fed a probabilistic description of the domain and, when new evidence arrives, the system just shuffles things around and gives you your revised belief in all the propositions, revised to reflect the new evidence.* 

I have offered a Christmas poem or other short writing to family, friends, and close-ish others for many years. This year I think it is my last, for the reason given above. To wit, mostly I get no acknowledgement or other response. I have a few faithful readers. I take that back. I have one, and she is a treasure--my cousin in Carson City, Nevada, and this year her dear partner along life's circuitous byways. And then sometimes, more often than I care to count, I get, "Huh?!" Or worse, "Why did you ask me to read your incoherent missive?"

Which this year has led to these two of six New Year's resolutions that seem probable.

• Send no unsolicited writing anymore, ever, to anyone--to no one! except to my cousin and one or two other people.
• Respond to--don't initiate--conversations, but once invited, help the conversation go somewhere, especially by raising questions, not by sharing my knowledge, opinions, or observations.

Here is this year's unsolicited offer/offending piece, called Exhibit One.

I have had a relationship with the Czech Republic. It has been off and on since 1994, although one of my earliest memories of Czechoslovakia as someplace fascinating and far, far away--I would never visit--was a hockey game played in the early 50s that I watched on our first TV set, black and white.

The relationship is back on, and I have returned to where it began for real for me in 1994, Prague. On, by the way, means I am here and not there (elsewhere) and enjoying it this time, having put some unpleasant learning experiences associated with Czechs and the developing country in my past.

Two of my delights are Christmas postcards, especially those of Josef Lada and vánoční koleda (Christmas carols), especially as sung by children's choirs. Although the Czech Republic, I have maintained, is a godless place, especially here in Bohemia, there is saving grace when viewing these postcards and listening to Czech koleda at least once a year.

In the past I have shared with family and friends both the postcards and the carols, but I think it was more for my pleasure than theirs. For the last several years, I have again carried around a batch of these postcards promising myself I would send them out this year in time for Christmas. I failed, again.

However, here is my excuse and a fulfillment of my promise to myself, realized this time of course in my own way. I have turned 71, and although I deny that aging is setting in and have stories for why I don't get done in a day what I used to be able to accomplish, I, like an annoying and insistent child, send at least the Christmas cards plus bonus, a bit of background for them and the artist ( http://praguemylove.blogspot.cz/2010/12/happy-birthday-josef-lada.html ).

Perhaps you will have a look and a read and find something? a bit of your own childhood perhaps, a remembrance of simpler, more innocent times? Wouldn't that be nice gift to yourself. Are these times gone forever? Not if you click on each image and put yourself inside for a moment to see, reflect, and try to decode what these Czechs, and we, are about other than hubris and hedonism, and not just at this time of year.

Oh, as for the music. I have not fundamentally changed about that either. I have no love of music except for Czech Christmas songs and American folk music. Kind of figures, doesn't it? But I won't inflict any of that on you this year--there is always next, we trust.

Exhibit Two. One person wrote me back asking why should she read my holiday message? She really did not have me or my message on her list of priorities and in her busy schedule, which she outlined for me. She objected to my appreciation for a part of the country-culture Czech. I had not expressed the same for Italy and Italians.

I'm sorry. She didn't read my Benano Blog carefully enough, for one. And for the record, each country-culture has its delights and downers; and gosh, my own country of birth has a culture today I can hardly recognize or accept, although there are still things to love about it. Two, how can I be responsible for interfering with her choices of what to attend to and what not?

However, just like the downsides of Italy and Italians, or the Czech Republic, or anywhere else, there is a brighter one. My now former correspondent has a point. Why should anyone read unsolicited material? from a friend? during the holidays? or at anytime? trying to share something about another art and a small corner in the world of music? (Thus the above listed, no longer proposed, resolution.)

Salvation is always loving support for one's efforts, efforts born of good intentions and feelings of affection for the health and well being of others. If this indeed shows through what one does, receiving back in like kind gives one the strength to carry on, regardless of the fool one makes of oneself from time to time.

This year I got several returns like that from the holiday message, and although in all probability based on evidence counted and weighed over the years, I will cease and desist the annual, no doubt selfish, ritual, I take heart and would like to return service with a delight that will be easy to field and redemptive.

A bitter-sweet Czech/Moravian love song, "Teče, voda, Teče," sung by one of the Petits chanteurs a la Croix de Bois. Not exactly Christmas music, but you'll get the idea, er feeling, and will fall in love too, just as with a closer look, I believe, at the Czech Christmas cards I promoted in my holiday message.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2-7aoeozyE

Careful. The song and singer might just break your heart, as in part the message of the lyrics will, but you don't need to know what is being said. You don't need words with art or music. One- and two-way conversations don't always need words.

I dare you not to be touched regardless of other worldly priorities/schedule. Take three minutes. It is my last unsolicited message, which is now a challenge, in all probability.
___
* https://www.edge.org/conversation/judea_pearl-engines-of-evidence

That which commends itself

. . . as evident.

Consider

1. Truth is the most definitive knowledge about and understanding of something that we can have at a given time.

[We employ curiosity, assumptionless observations, and reason to organize evidence and posit truths.]

2. Beauty is the strongest sense we have of the truth of something, and it creates a desire to have more, or even better, endlessly.

[Intuition, conviction, and creativity stimulate and inform our sense of what is beautiful.]

3. Goodness is totally, defensibly the best truth that we can contemplate, embrace, and act upon.

[Truth is beauty. Beauty is truth. In combination these constitute the good.

Faith, belief, and hope are feelings directed toward a something deemed true, beautiful, and good; such feelings transcend our current ability to understand what is, or to accept whatever as it is.

Missing from this big-three constellation of primary and ultimate human pursuits, other than any and every act to negate or contradict their primacy and universal importance, are these.]

4. Being (not doing) and compassion complete the human enterprise.

[In being, one does not act to advance but to gather oneself unto the self and bask in the experience of oneness, of unity.

A healthy self love looks inward but also has the capacity and maturity to extend outward and participate in the being and pursuits of others.]

The challenge

Tests of these "universals" are in specific examples of human endeavor, not excluding those which would seem to belie their applicability and comprehensiveness.

Your turn.

My point

Claims without specifics or citations of studies "proving that something or other does thus and so" are in the category of made-up beliefs and anecdotal notions, not to be taken seriously.

Not here, not anywhere.

Illustration, as sent to me by a relative, who has a certificate of mental disability from the Czech government. But one doesn't need a certificate to claim off-the-wall "facts" . . . as we can observe all across the great country (USA), and elsewhere.

[begin quote]

"Dr. Liu Yiping , encouraged each person receiving this newsletter to  forward it to another ten people, certainly at least one life will be saved ... I've done my part, I hope you can help do your part. thanks!

Drinking hot lemon water can prevent cancer. Don't add sugar. Hot lemon water is more beneficial than cold lemon water.
Both yellow n purple sweet potato have good cancer prevention properties.
01. Often taking late night supper can increase the chance of stomach cancer
02. Never take more than 4 eggs per week
03. Eating pope's nose (chicken backside) can cause stomach cancer
04. Never eat fruits after meal. Fruits should be eaten before meals
05. Don't take tea during menstruation period.
06. Take less soy milk, no adding sugar or egg to soy milk
07. Don't eat tomato with empty stomach
08. Drink a glass of plain water every morning before food to prevent gall bladder stones
09. No food 3 hrs before bed time
10. Drink less Teh Tarik, no nutritional properties but can cause diabetes and hypertension
11. Do not eat toast bread when it is hot from oven or toaster
12. Do not charge your handphone or any device next to you when you are sleeping
13. Drink 10 glasses of water a day to prevent bladder cancer
14. Drink more water in the day time, less at night
15. Don't drink more than 2 cups of coffee a day, may cause insomnia and gastric
16. Eat less oily food. It takes 5-7 hrs to digest them, makes you feel tired
17. After 5pm, eat less
18. Six types of food that makes you happy: banana, grapefruit, whole meal bread, spinach, pumpkin, peach.
19. Sleeping less than 8 hrs a day may deteriorate our brain function. Taking Afternoon naps may keep our youthful look.
Cooked tomato has better healing properties than the raw tomato.
Hot lemon water can sustain your health and make you live longer!
Hot lemon water kills cancer cells
Add hot water to 2-3 slices of lemon. Make it a daily drink
The bitterness in hot lemon water is the best substance to kill cancer cells.
Cold lemon water only has vitamin C, no cancer prevention.

Hot lemon water can control cancer tumor growth.
Clinical tests have proven hot lemon water works.
This type of Lemon extract treatment will only destroy the malignant cells, it does not affect healthy cells.
Next... citric acid and lemon polyphenol in side lemon juice, can help reduce high blood pressure, effective prevention of deep vein thrombosis, improve blood circulation, and reduce blood clots.

[end quote]

___
Suggest one could start here, if interested in pursuing this lemon-water business, especially as observed with mice, the experimental subjects.

Up 'nd go*

Got dead things in your pool?

Want a meal makes you drool?

Call the cook and pool boy--

here to aid ya--though one's goy!

Sick of dead lines you must fix?

Set 'em 'side and have some kicks.

Alone is not lonely, this we know,

but work no play? Up, let's go!

___
* A friend was editing her book and working toward a deadline. She was holed up in her house. The poem was a neighborly, textured offer to give her a break and some assistance as well as food and diversion.

Stupid space cadet

Comments and questions related to posts here have again demonstrated that close reading, including the exercise of basic skills for understanding text, are wanting. Or I am failing miserably to communicate clearly. This is clearly a possibility.

In short, the blog posts here say what they say. Poorly or brilliantly they do so--seldom brilliantly--but it doesn't much matter, for this blog is more a storage place for a miscellany than a bunch of stuff intended for others to read and converse about. Writing for no audience is still my modus operandi and raison d'etre for web logging.

Note this blog is titled "Sort Me". That is to say, this is a place where a speaker-writer is expressing self-referential thoughts, confusions, complaints, observations, what-have-yous. It is by and about a me, this me. And it is for me, with perhaps your witnessing and noodling, should you care, to sort out, or sort through, whatever is here worthy of bother. "It is," in the catchphrase cliche of today, "all about me."

An aside here. The other reader (of only two, maybe three) of this blog took great offense a year or so ago at what he perceived was a personal attack against him. (Out of consideration for his blood pressure and mine, I have since deleted the post and his pornographic email messages.) Among his complaints in a vicious tirade--so vile I dare never quote him--was that bloggers, "he suspected," were "selfish bastards." Well, where has he been since writing was first invented? My blog even places that claimer right up front.

Idiot. Stupid idiot.

Attack the messenger, not the message? Holding things at arm's length is not one of the characteristics of good readers these days, or ever!

Textual. We are instructed from an early age to answer several questions about what we read. What is it about? is the first. The second is, what is the point or meaning? The first question is answered by the context for my post, but also by the text itself. The post I am referring to is about this writer's use of terms not used before but now does more so because their use brings him closer to describing the realities he encounters. "I didn't use these words before but now I do, because I see that they are apt in the world I experience and know something little about." (Writing about writing is always wordier and less elegant than the original.) And the particular words and phrase chosen for use stand out from a background formerly foreign to this same messenger. He must have heard or noticed them more as a result of a change in location or culture . . . than he did before some years ago, living in a different world, no doubt his own.

We learn early also that it is at the beginning of a piece of writing where we should be able to find what a writing is about and why it was written. (At least in the culture of writing in English.) From the title, this piece is advice to a reader and a writer that it is now acceptable to call a spade a spade, to tell it like it is, to not mince words, to speak one's mind, etc. And that might mean pointing out someone who I dare and deem to call an idiot, or stupid, or a stupid idiot--from now on. Like, for example,

Donald Trump is a stupid idiot.

From the first lines of the post, I "now" use these words and I have been sliding "into reality" by doing so. With these words, you thus have the makings of the thesis statement for the piece.

The question is not whether I used these words previously, or whether the expression "stupid idiot" was common somewhere, or used by others in my country speaking the same English, or so on. These are questions not addressed by this expository snippet. The only thing addressed is the thesis statement with the words and expression and the rules for usage that obtain, or seem to obtain--in my case.

One might well ask (me),

• Where have you been that you have not used such language till now? 
• Did you recently drop onto this planet from outer space?

And naturally, the argumentum ad hominem such questions actually reveal: "Stupid space cadet!"

I accept the judgment and sentence. I have just dropped from space and now find myself in a reality I previously didn't know about or acknowledge with words that others find all too familiar and useful. And because of that, I can be seen as an example of those words.