To Mock a Killing Bird

The Mockery

Mockery (Colin) comes in various Styles (Ryan), as is entertainingly evident on the brilliant improvisation show 'Whose Line is it Anyway?' where points do not matter but are resoundingly made regarding the awesome human capability of instant creativity.  There is definitely some Creative mockery at play in the design of creatures like the platypus, kangaroo, capybara, gecko, and the owl. Though this post is about the owl, let's take a short detour to celebrate the capybara. There's the oryx too, but I leave that to be covered by my friend who introduced me to the capybara and oryx.

The Capybara ->

The term rodent (biological name of this order is Rodentia, now called Zimbabwe which has literally gone to the rodents) is typically identified with a small creature, so having the world's largest rodent weigh in at 75 pounds is a disturbing anomaly. It's like Volkswagen trying to intentionally or unintentionally cannibalize it's luxury brand sales by launching a short-lived $95,000 beast called Phaeton. It's the folk's wagon by definition, and common folk would rather buy an Audi A8 if they want to splurge, so what's the idea? The capybara asks questions like these but does not get an answer because it is destined to lead its life in oblivion. You might argue that a lion and tiger are extraordinary large cats, but the range for feline creatures is defined and known. The capybara on the other hand exists outside our standard range curriculum because it doesn't even count - there might be some bravery in being out of range.

The Killing Bird -> 

So what possessed the Creator to design a bird with eyes in the front and then realizing his/her flaw, give it almost 360 degree neck-rotation capability, make it nocturnal, and give it ophthalmic goiters in order to help it see at night? Seems like a lot of patching done after an initially flawed design. While owls are considered manifestations of wisdom in western folklore, they have a sinister perception (magic, death, witchcraft) in many cultures possibly because of their nocturnal nature. In India, the owl is considered dim-witted and often invites references in derogatory/ridiculing phrases like 'owl' and 'son of owl' - I am not sure why. The owl is a preying bird, and it eats rodents among other living creatures - but the capybara is out of its range, thus validating my previous paragraph.

The Anatomy

Somehow the owl has gotten associated with the human anatomy, possibly by indirectly lending its name to a hooting restaurant chain. Come to think of it, many animals have gotten associated with the human anatomy, thus literally embodying the phrase 'animal instinct'. The cat, rooster, donkey, and owl must be occasionally getting together and commiserating by singing the Pet Shop Boys song 'What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this!'.

The Alien

Anyhow, I think the owl is an alien creature and OWL is an acronym. It stands for Other-Worldly Life!

The Hoot

Owl's well that ends well, and owl be back with more stories. Hoot Toot Toot, The Owl is a Hoot!

Mockery in Style (Owl and Gecko)

Note - Pun intended but no offense intended to these comic geniuses!

Leaving Just 'A' Memory?

There is a scene towards the end of the movie Hannibal where Ray Liotta, sounding incoherent in an apparent drunken stupor, is suddenly revealed to the camera with his brain showing. Anthony Hopkins has removed his skull-cap with the kind of surgical precision reserved for evil, educated, geniuses like him. This goes back to my earlier point about my fear of Vulcans - pure logic and no emotion results in irrefutable justification for any act. Liotta is blissfully unaware (and will soon not remember what blissful or unaware even means) of his condition as Hopkins takes pieces out of his brain, fries them and feeds them to him, thus creating a feedback loop the likes of which have not been seen since Catch-22. If Liotta were an earthworm, he might have gotten his lost memories back when he was fed his own brain parts. But that's another topic.

As for parts of your brain losing significance as they are dispatched unceremoniously, could there be a more potent metaphor for Alzheimer's than that scene?

If there is one disease thats scares the neurons and synapses out of me, it's Alzheimer's. Consciousness, thought, memory, intelligence, and creativity are constructs that have no business existing in a biological structure subject to all kinds of damage - there has to be some kind of a backup structure to at least reduce the dependency of the software on its medium. Music left the CD when it went the mp3 route (and that is now happening with movies too), and was no longer subject to usage and environmental vagaries like scratches, smudges, dust, decay etc. We are a sum of our memories, and if they start getting randomly or methodically erased by this confounding disease, then what's left? What meaning does existence have if all the lights upstairs are switched off and Elvis has left the building? Waking up one morning with a Jason Bourne identity crisis feeling is not very appealing. Bourne slowly got his memories back (and was 'bourne again'), but Alzheimer's is a one-way descent into hell with the last possible memory (if any) being a snapshot in your mind like Thelma and Louise frozen mid-air while running their car off the cliff.

This is the only disease that wipes the very core of our existence while leaving our shells intact, and leaves no room for an encore!

Daddy's flown across the ocean. Doesn't look like he intended to leave any memory.

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Post title:  Courtesy 'Another Brick in the Wall Part 1, The Wall by Pink Floyd'

William Words Words

Poetry in Brownian Motion

Man proposes, God disposes
Salieri disposes what Mozart composes
Beethoven composes while a corpse decomposes
Keith Richards survives opiates in overwhelming doses

The dictator reposes while the rebellion deposes
The attorney deposes what the defendant supposes
'The Thinker' supposes as it metamorphoses
Trials of modern life drive increasing neuroses

The rationalist proposes, the fundamentalist opposes
The politician opposes what the journalist exposes
An actress exposes when every other door closes
Winter sees Daycares with many running noses

Forests shiver as urbanization encroaches
'Ecstasy' encroaches and the addict overdoses
An uninvited guest imposes as the house forecloses
The guitarist bristles when the keyboardist unexpectedly transposes

Information overload equals drinking from fire hoses

Age is no longer a constraint for coronary thromboses 

Science wins over morals when the scientist juxtaposes
We need the Red Sea to part again for Moses

Life is troubled by thorns as it treads the beds of roses
This rhyme loses reason and contemplates the pros of proses
We wait with bated breath as the future approaches
But this world has and will always belong to the roaches

Man proposes, God disposes

3M - Morality, Molarity, and Molality

Morality is convenience-based. It is compromised regularly in the name of progress and greater good, and human beings are naturally inclined to provide dubious rationalization for morally ambiguous decisions. Moral Science is an oxymoron since what is moral is typically ambiguous and what is Science is disappointingly anything but. Scientific morals is an even scarier oxymoron, since 1) science typically does not have morals (so many human and animal experiments have been justified in the name of science), and 2) it does not exist even though scientists and researchers and labs and companies would claim otherwise. Reminds me of a this line from a eminently forgettable movie with a lot of unrealized potential - 'Are you a terrific scientist or a scientific terrorist?'.

Molarity and Molality, along with Normality, have chemistry definitions that are quite boring. So I made up my own definitions that signal a descent into Monty Python-esque absurdity. Read at your own risk:

'Molar'ity defines the state of teeth (deciduous, cracked, plaqued, unrooted, extracted, crowned, falling, expired, dentured), 'Normal'ity is boring, and Molality sounds made-up even for chemistry. These 3 come together to form the miniature candy M'n'M, as well as the rapper Marshall Mathers (better known as Eminem).