Arnold (em)bodied

So I am here in Austria, and came across a photo of Arnold Schwartzenegger around town.  Once Austrian, now head of the fourth largest economy of the World, the state of California.  I guess playing Conan the barbarian and Mr. Freeze might prepare you for that kind of thing.

Right just before I left for over-here a letter came in the mail.  My friend Jen had sent me a news clipping. My old classmate, Jay Cutler, made the news again.  In first grade Jay and I  used to do skids together in the playground sand.  Just recently, Jay won his 3rd Arnold Classic title.
How many degrees of separation does that give me to Arnold, or this photo I've come across here in his homeland?  I should now say something about 'the world being small' at this point I suppose. But really, it's even worse than that...

lingua obscura

observation logbook: observation #3452, Vienna.

I like made-up words.
And who doesn't?
Philosophers win the prize, though, hands down.  Here's a sample of some buzzing past my ears ... A concept for every occasion:

truth as conformation
ratifying knowledge
holistic conventionalism
method of coincidences
discursive interactions
norms of critical contextual empiricism
synthetic a priori
N-dimensional manifolds
measured realism
naive empiricism
underdetermination
constituitive of the concept of the object
communicative rationality
inter-paradigmatic conceptual limbo
sensualist positivism

gelegenheidsdichterdrinkster

Flemish: Belgians keen on speaking a peculiar kind of Dutch
Flanders: A place where they like to speak Flemish.

F. and C. live around the Turkish part of Ghent, so their are a lot of 'doner kebab' shops and smokey tea rooms exclusively the province of men . Canal to cobblestone, it overall seems to be a three-storey city overall, save an occasional medieval steeple.

Today the sun was actually out, which naturally means good Belgian waffle weather. mmm. Warm vanilla hinted sugar-bombs, these things. The shop warmed them up and you can just take them away in your hand.

Of course, you could also buy them at Food Lion.
(?!)
Yes, truth revealed, beloved Food Lion is a Belgian company. That lion in profile on the logo that looks like it's busting out with "The Robot" on the dance floor? Yeah, that's the Lion of Flanders, my friends.

And what word-concepts might they have in Flemish they might not have in English:

gelegenheidsdichter : occasional poet
gelegenheidsdrinkster : occasional drinker

ergo... gelegenheidsdichter-drinkster : occasional poet drinker ?

swim. swam. swum.

93 Fahrenheit? Dunk your head, yo.


The Quarry is an oasis in a state where few lakes exist that aren’t simply dammed rivers. Bodies of water in North Cackalak are a little too brownish and murky. I need the satisfaction of seeing my feet floating below me in green or black glassy water; but maybe that’s the New England snob in me talking.

The sharp and unpredictable patches of cold and warm water throughout the Quarry are contenders for the top 20 damn-fine things the world of senses has to offer. It’s like taking shots of whiskey while you’re swimming, randomly and seriatim.

It’s true, seeing the loss of the rope swing was sad, as was the park rangers kicking us out mid afternoon. Today my feet still feel like they are floating a little.

petals; fungus

Late last afternoon is rained so hard that almost every small flower got knocked the tree in front of my apartment. Now its shadow is this ring of red petals that makes it look as if the force of one strong sneeze shook the flowers off all the tree's slender branches. Everywhere else on the ground thick and floppy mushrooms are springing out of the ground, like tan and earthy cumulus clouds piling on top of each other, ready to storm something fierce. I suppose a shower of spores.

passing the days in a thinner air

If you are in Colorado and happen by to the Rocky Mtn. Stampede in Greeley, you find all the things one might expect at a summer fair, like carousels, airbrush artists and irresistible petty gambles on the Midway (long live the ring toss). Recruiters from all four branches of the military may also show up (7 pull-ups gets you a Marines CD carry case; 10, a T-shirt).

The food stands run the range, but Grandma's made me the happiest.


I had fried pickles for the first time. I also saw a 3-week old baby camel (Dromedary, not Bactrian) at the petting zoo, which filled me and my companions with a small but very certain grief. What is it like as an African camel at 6000 ft., bottle fed and surrounded by agoutis, potbellied pigs and downy, speckled goats in a petting zoo sponsored by the Volvo dealer of greater Greeley?
...
The sun is brighter and the sky is large everywhere you'd care to look this state. The food is also large, like the cinnamon buns at Johnson's Corner truck stop that are as big as a child's head. Naturally you get a side of butter with that.


Course, the original reason to be in northern CO were biology meetings in Fort Collins: 1300 evolutionary biologists together for 4 days, each of us allotted 9 free drinks. Out of the 750 talks some will stand out, even to the most skeptical of imaginations --

June 28, 9:15am: "Consistent departures from neutral equilibrium in large, unstructured populations of whale lice"