MY POEMS #1 - 'I am lonely, will anybody speak to me'

'I am lonely, will anybody speak to me'

By Jesse Young (2011)

Of dreary hue; black, the accursed dog. Its callous sport, to bite me into night.
& ever; black that night - stolen away and kept from light.
My loneliness; stark, saps will – all but gone. Isolation brings, an end to ambition.
& ever, disconnect – bitter taste; nihilist condition.
Once encountered; woe, irrevocable. A malice strike, not easily undone.
& ever, in the thrall – darkness all; battle never won.
Is reaching out; folly? Fatalist notions. Obstructed, colonial mentality.
& ever, misguided – learn to accept banality.
A final plea; hear, an impassioned cry. Optimism, forgotten-renewed.
& ever, still this hope – fleeting chance; shall the black night lift?

Weeky Words #2:

Each week I pull 10 words from the vast ocean of vocabulary and share them for our mutual edification.

Dandle - To move (a small child) up and down on the knees or in the arms in a playful way: "Somebody who was dandled on Queen Victoria's knee must appear an old fogy” ( Edward, Duke of Windsor). To pamper or pet. To play or trifle with; put off with cajolery or trifling excuses; wheedle; cajole. To defer or protract by trifles.

Repartee- A swift, witty reply. Conversation marked by the exchange of witty retorts. Adroitness and cleverness in reply. A repartee is a witty and good-humored answer to a remark of similar character, and is meant to surpass the latter in wittiness. A retort is a keen, prompt answer.

Waggish - Characteristic of or resembling a wag; jocular or witty. Like a wag; abounding in sportive or jocular tricks, antics, sayings, etc.; roguish in merriment or good humor; frolicsome. Humorous in a playful, mischievous, or facetious manner - 'a waggish riposte'.

Prevaricate - To stray from or evade the truth; equivocate. To deviate; swerve from the normal or proper course; stray. To swerve from the truth; act or speak evasively; quibble. In law: To undertake a thing falsely and deceitfully, with the purpose of defeating or destroying the object which it is professed to promote. To betray the cause of a client, and by collusion assist his opponent.

Brown-out - A reduction or cutback in electric power, especially as a result of a shortage, a mechanical failure, or overuse by consumers. A sustained period of low alternating current line voltage When demand for electricty exceeds the available supply, a brownout occurs.

Prostrate - To put or throw flat with the face down, as in submission or adoration: "He did not simply sit and meditate, he also knelt down, sometimes even prostrated himself” ( Iris Murdoch).

Baleful -  Portending evil; ominous. Harmful or malignant in intent or effect. Full of hurtful or malign influence; destructive; pernicious; noxious; direful; deadly: as, “baleful breath,” Full of grief or sorrow; woeful; sad.

Repudiate - to reject as having no authority or binding force: torepudiate a claim. To cast off or disown: to repudiate a son. To reject with disapproval or condemnation: to repudiate anew doctrine.

Fulsome - The state or quality of being fulsome or showing overdone and insincere flatter, characterized by abundance. buttery: unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech; "buttery praise"; "gave him a fulsome introduction"; "an oily sycophantic press agent"; "oleaginous hypocrisy"; "smarmy self-importance"; "the unctuous Uriah Heep"; "soapy compliments."

Garrulous - Given to excessive and often trivial or rambling talk; tiresomely talkative. Talkative; prating; loquacious; specifically, given to talking much and with much minuteness and repetition of unimportant or trivial details.

(Definitions sourced from various reputable online dictionaries, usually in association with wordnik.com)

Weeky Quote #2:

It is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.

- Christoper Hitchens 

This particular quote is lifted from a recent letter of Christopher Hitchens', addressed to the atheist community, (It reads - 'Dear fellow-unbelievers'). It was written in lieu of an appearance at the American Atheist Convention as esophageal cancer has now claimed his voice.

Utter randomness #1 - Recursive wiki.

Its the infinite Wikipedia page, stare into the endless abyss!

Interesting site found #2 - Paleofuture

Paleofuture
'The future that never was'


What is it?
Explores materials related to how people in the past envisioned the future to be. Ofttimes the societies and technologies imagined seem to us now as quaint or comical, primarily I think because of how greatly these scenarios diverge from our reality (though there are rare instances of stunning prescience). We might be inclined to scoff at how implausible their extrapolations appear to us, but of course hindsight is 20-20, and will our attempts to map out beyond our own time really fare any better? I don't think the trend is fixed on failure - as technology and our knowledge-base improves, so too might our predictive power, however we should remain aware of our limited ability to forecast chaotic and highly contingent future outcomes. This site also boasts an aesthetically awesome retro-futuristic style, which is cool in and of itself. 


Why should I care?
Thinking about this could go some way in humbling us to our own ability to accurately forecast the future. It is already known that even 'experts' are not particularly reliable in predicting the future and it is interesting and indeed fruitful to think about just how well it is possible to know what the future will hold. 

Interesting site found #1 - Better Than English.

Better Than English
'Sometimes its easier to say it in another language'


What is it? 
Fascinating, expressive and downright strange words 'untranslatable' into English are posted on a regular basis (donated by readers to be exact), from languages across the globe - well-known or obscure.

Highlights include:
- Guanxi (关系) (Mandarin) - Quanxi is the term often used to express the cultural differences that affect doing business in China vs. the West. Guanxi describes the interplay of a complex network of personal and social relationships. It can be understood in terms of it not being just what you know, but also whom you know.
- Latah (Indonesian) - Uncontrollable habit of saying embarrassing things.
- Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan) - A look shared between two people where each person is wishing that the other will initiate something they both desire but which neither one wants to start.
- Bakkushan ( バックシャン) (Japanese) - A woman that looks better from behind than from the front.
- Ya'aburnee (يقبرني) (Arabic) - “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.

 

Why should I care?
Language plays a part in shaping our conceptions of the world, therefore there is value in stepping outside our language sphere and thereby perhaps broadening our conceptual reference points. Many cultures have developed succinct terms that get across a wealth of meaning within a single word; studying these can foster an appreciation of the diversity of cultures out there, and maybe it will also spark some reflection on why English is the way it is, and not some other (equally valid) way.

Weeky Quote #1:

"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."

- Stephen Jay Gould

'Perverse to withhold provisional assent' perfectly captures those times when the weight of the evidence is so overwhelmingly in favor of one possibility, that for the time being it would be ludicrous to disagree with what the evidence is pointing to. 

Weeky Words #1:

Each week I pull 10 words from the vast ocean of vocabulary and share them for our mutual edification.

Quondam - Having been formerly; former: as, one's quondam friend; a quondam schoolmaster.
Captious - Apt to notice and make much of unimportant faults or defects; disposed to find fault or raise objections; prone to cavil; difficult to please; faultfinding; touchy: as, a captious man. Marked by a disposition to find and point out trivial faults: a captious scholar.
Rejoinder - An answer, especially to a reply. A quick response that involves disagreement or is witty; especially an answer to a reply.
Akimbo - In or into a position in which the hands are on the hips and the elbows are bowed outward: children standing akimbo by the fence.
Phantasmagoria -A fantastic sequence of haphazardly associative imagery, as seen in dreams or fever.A constantly changing scene composed of numerous elements. Fantastic imagery as represented in art.
Highfalutin - (Informal) Pompous or pretentious: "highfalutin reasons for denying direct federal assistance to the unemployed”. Self-important, pompous; arrogant or egotistical; tending to show off or hold oneself in unduly high regard.
Gauche -Lacking social polish; tactless. In mathematics, skew. Specifically— Not plane; twisted. Left-handed; awkward; clumsy.
Miasma -  noxious atmosphere or influence: "The family affection, the family expectations, seemed to permeate the atmosphere . . . like a coiling miasma” ( Louis Auchincloss). A poisonous atmosphere formerly thought to rise from swamps and putrid matter and cause disease. A thick vaporous atmosphere or emanation: wreathed in a miasma of cigarette smoke.
Patsy - (informal, derogatory) A person who is taken advantage of, especially by being cheated or blamed for something.
Risible - Relating to laughter or used in eliciting laughter. Eliciting laughter; ludicrous. Capable of laughing or inclined to laugh.


(Definitions sourced from various reputable online dictionaries, usually in association with wordnik.com)