this week i

met emilie for aubergine after ezra's bedtime.  two honked at leytonstone construction single file, unwilling to give way like greek myths

 

drove to canterbury brunch, then huseyin lit the fireplace.  is this as close as you get to camping?  //  you say that as if it's a bad thing




read the 1988 report: the seasonality of crime victimization by the u.s. department of justice bureau of justice statistics.  omitted geography, as summer in san francisco isn't summer in chicago isn't summer in miami

based on total victimizations, the highly seasonal crimes are household larceny $50 or more, rape, household larceny less than $50, and unlawful entry.  those crimes exhibiting the least amount of seasonality are personal larceny without contact $50 or more, motor vehicle theft, robbery, forcible entry, and simple assault

in the case of motor vehicle theft, 86% of completed thefts were reported to the police in 1984, but only 40% of attempted thefts became part of the police record


read matthew arnold's essay on marcus aurelius

our improvement is in proportion to our purpose

the paramount virtue of religion is, that it has
lighted up morality; that it has supplied the emotion and inspiration needful for carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, for carrying the ordinary man along it at all.  even the religions with the most dross in them have had something of this virtue; but the christian religion manifests it with unexampled splendor

the translators of the bible talk of
pence and not denarii

 

read wikipedia's french republican calendar here in the year two hundred and thirty one.  dvorak but for time

the beginning of each year was set at midnight, beginning on the day the apparent autumnal equinox falls at the paris observatory

twelve months, each divided into three ten-day weeks called decades

each day in the republican calendar was divided into ten hours, each hour into 100 decimal minutes, and each decimal minute into 100 decimal seconds.  thus an hour was 144 conventional minutes (2.4 times as long as a conventional hour), a minute was 86.4 conventional seconds (44% longer than a conventional minute), and a second was 0.864 conventional seconds (13.6% shorter than a conventional second)

vintage, mist, frost, snowy, rainy, windy, germination, flower, meadow, harvest, summer heat, fruit..in britain, a contemporary wit mocked the republican calendar by calling the months: wheezy, sneezy, and freezy; slippy, drippy and nippy; showery, flowery and bowery; hoppy, croppy and poppy

we thought that the nation, after having kicked out this canonised mob from its calendar, must replace it with the objects that make up the true riches of the nation, worthy objects not from a cult, but from agriculture - useful products of the soil, the tools that we use to cultivate it, and the domesticated animals, our faithful servants in these works; animals much more precious, without doubt, to the eye of reason, than the beatified skeletons pulled from the catacombs of rome

 

read the bastard of istanbul by elif shafak

a prayer originally designed to be called out in the pureness of the human voice was dehumanized into an electro-voice roaring over the city from microphones and cabinet speakers

the cat must be what little dowry she has

his problems with alcohol had skyrocketed.  he started waking up in questionable places he'd never been before.  but the final straw came when early one morning he found himself in the courtyard of a mosque lying on the flat stone where the dead were washed, apparently having passed out there while trying to mastermind his own funeral.  when he managed to open his eyes at dawn, a young imam, on his way to recite the morning prayer, was standing next to him, shocked to encounter a stranger snoring on the stone of the dead

the story of a man who decided to travel the entire globe round and round, in an endeavor to escape his mortality.  north and south, east and west, he wandered every which way he could.  once, in one of his numerous trips, he unexpectedly ran into azrail, the angel of death, in cairo.  azrail's piercing gaze raked the man with a mysterious expression.  he neither said a word nor followed him.  the man right away abandoned cairo, traveling non-stop thereafter until he arrived in a small, sleepy town in china.  thirsty and tired he rushed into the first tavern on his way.  there, next to the table to which he was ushered, sat azrail patiently waiting for him, this time with a relieved expression on his face.  "i was so surprised to run into you in cairo," he rasped to the man, "for your destiny said it was here in china that we two would meet"

in rapt silence they watched the turkish donald trump materialize from behind the bright satin curtains of a spacious office with a wonderful panorama of the bosphorus bridge.  after a quick, condescending glance at the two teams awaiting his orders, the businessman informed them of their task.  each team was instructed to design a bottle of sparkling water, find a way to manufacture ninety-nine of them, and then sell them all as swiftly and as expensively as possible in one of the most luxurious quarters of the city

"i am closer to you than your jugular vein" (50:16)

ways of loving from a distance, mating without even touching - amor platonicus! the ladder of love one is expected to climb higher and higher, elating the self and the other.  plato clearly regards any actual physical contact as corrupt and ignoble because he thinks the true goal of eros is beauty.  is there no beauty in sex?  not according to plato.  he is after 'more sublime pursuits.'  but if you ask me, i think plato's problem, like those of many others, was that he never got splendidly laid

five high school students came in saying they each wanted to have an eyebrow pierced, but as soon as the sterilized needle went through the eyebrow of the first, the others changed their minds

mustafa would never use his right hand.  the right hand was reserved for clean things, clean and consecrated.  it was with his right hand that he'd touch the qur'an, hold a rosary, and open closed doors.  it was with his right hand that he would take the old people's hands to kiss.  as blessed as his right hand was, the left hand was reserved for the abominable

in a land far away, too far away, there lived an old couple with four children, two daughters and two sons.  one daughter was ugly, and the other was beautiful.  the younger brother decided to marry the beautiful one.  but she did not want to.  she washed her silk clothes and went to the water and rinsed them.  she rinsed and cried.  it was cold.  her hands and feet were freezing.  she came home and knocked on the door, but it was locked.  she knocked on her mother's window, and her mother answered: "i'll let you in if you will call me mother-in-law"

i am going to prison.  my drawings of the prime minister as a penguin weren't well received, i guess

the woman who couldn't cry and the onion

 

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