"Pagal Kuttas" Surrender, US Wins

My Zenness has nothing to do with my absence, Scout.

Meanwhile, America is free of the canine rabies virus.

When I was a kid, the prospect of getting the rabies virus injection scared me more than the thought of being chewed up by a mutt.

"Fourteen injections in the stomach", we were told by our parents. After this would come a graphic description of the syringe, followed by a stern reminder that one would most definitely grow fur, tail and claws after fourteen injections. Or that one would lift his leg at every lamp-post and chase every car and scooter in town.

I don't know about you but the latter idea doesn't sound too bad to me.

Twenty Years

There's a Zen story about an eager student who asked his teacher how long it would take for him to reach enlightenment if he meditated every day. The teacher answered, "ten years". A bit disappointed by this answer, the student asked how long it would take if he doubled his efforts. "Twenty years" the teacher replied.

I remembered this story when I got out of my bright-orange kayak. (Yes, I have a Zen parable for every occasion.)

An hour earlier I had sat down in the kayak. I was, as always, anxious to overpower the kayak and the nearly-still stream. I paddled really hard but found myself going round and around and generously splashing water on myself and my fellow kayakers. (It's a good thing most of us don't row to work. Imagine the water rage.) Blaming my utter lack of control on my obviously-defective paddle, I switched grips to find the most optimal position so I could conserve energy and glide elegantly. Instead, I did more circles and crashed into the thorny bushes every two minutes.

Twenty minutes later, I got tired of trying. Lack of fitness can be such a good thing. I put down my paddle, sat back and watched dragonflies dancing merrily on the sparkling surface of the water.

Birds chirped (one of them shrieked), the unruly grass growing on the bank swayed, kayakers paddled and without interference from the paddle, I floated downstream, absolutely straight, just like I had wanted to.

The Entire Tapestry

I cannot put it any more plainly: you haven't lived till you have read Richard Feynman's "The Character of Physical Law".

There are ideas in the book -everything from Law of Gravitation to Symmetry in Physical Law to the relation of Mathematics to Physics in 170 pages - that are so beautifully explained, I wanted to stand up on my plane seat and read those words aloud to my co-passengers. (Then I saw how engrossed they were, watching Shrek or reading Harry Potter and decided against acting out my impulse.)

Take this one particularly soul-stirring passage from a chapter on Entropy and Disorder, titled "The Distinction Between Past And Future":

Which end is nearer to God; if I may use a religious metaphor. Beauty and hope, or the fundamental laws? I think that the right way, of course, is to say that what we have to look at is the whole structural interconnection of the thing; and that is all the sciences, and not just the sciences but all the efforts of intellectual kinds, are an endeavour to see the connections of the hierarchies, to connect beauty to history, to connect history to man's psychology, man's psychology to the working of the brain, the brain to the neural impulse, the neural impulse to the chemistry, and so forth, up and down, both ways. And today we cannot, and it is no use making believe that we can, draw carefully a line all the way from one end of this thing to the other......And I do not think either end is nearer to God. To stand at either end, and to walk off that end of the pier only, hoping that out in that direction is the complete understanding, is a mistake. And to stand with evil and beauty and hope, or to stand with the fundamental laws, hoping that way to get a deep understanding of the whole world, with that aspect alone, is a mistake.

Sadly, these brilliant lectures which were once available on Google and YouTube have now have been removed. If any of you know any other video sites where I can find them, please post links in the commentspace. For that that don't have access to a good public library or a bookstore, just google for the book title and you will find excerpts on Google Books.

25, Single, Enjoys Nature Walks And Flinging Poop

Everything about the story can be deduced from this one paragraph:

"The monkeys grab their breasts, and gesture at us while pointing at their private parts. We are afraid that they will sexually harass us," said Mrs Njeri.

Damned dirty ape refuses to keep stinking paws to himself! (link to BBC)

UPDATE: More wild animals gone, er, wild

I know none of you are refreshing your browsers for updates to this rather important breaking news story, but reader "nat" posted a link in the commentspace to a similar incident involving a camel. Think I now know why they are called one-humped camels.

Question for you all: would these incidents be described as "bestiality" or "humaniality"? Think about it.

Duality And Contradiction

A Personal Injury Lawyer's office,
right next to the Zen meditation center.
My head assplodes.

In Which Annie Gives Me Those Ones

I enter the plane and who do I see in front of me? Annie Leibovitz, sitting all by herself, reading the New York Times. Double, triple and quadruple takes (by me, not her.) Yup, that's Annie Leibovitz. No mistaking those glasses. I am hyperventilating. How could I not be? She took all those great photos (like this, this and this.) Oh, and she also shot that very famous picture on the morning of December 8, 1980.

Should I have said hello? Pulled out my cheap plastic pen and asked her for an autograph? Handed over my cellphone (the one with the 0.0002 nanopixel camera) to her and asked her for a portrait?

Sadly, I couldn't bring myself to doing any of those things. I chickened out and ate my overcooked chicken sandwich in regretful silence. But now I have decided that this non-encounter will be my Beatle story and it will always start this way: "I once flew with the photographer who took one of John's best pictures..." (mildly NSFW)

Bakin' Love

Did you know there are certain words and phrases that can "make men fall deeper in love" and that stud muffin is one of them?

If "stud muffin" will push a man over the cliff, heels under his head, into the raging sea of love, will calling him "watery oatmeal" keep him from committing to a relationship?

What about women? How do we make them fall deeper in love? "Slutty croissant" or "libidinous pastry"? What about "my kinky knish", "chaste pretzel" or "hot cross bun"?

Is there a "salacious piroshky" in your life?

Do the words "vampish vada" or "amorous samosa" mean anything to you?