I’m a little tea pot

“M stands for magical, miraculous, mystical … mad.”
- Colin McGinn

A Ratha Yatra is an annual tradition in some of the many Hinduisms. To put it in the most respectful terms, devotees make two or three figurines redolent of anime characters, stick them on a peaked cart and pull them down the street like pack animals. Then some funny little brahman gets word around that if one is crushed by a cart wheel, the wheel of dharma will fall from its tracks, releasing one from the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Some hapless Dalit’s smell a good deal, and stick their heads under the wheels. The ensuing sound, to the surprise of everyone, sounds remarkably like a man stepping on a snail.

Thus the word “juggernaut” (ultimately from Sanskrit Jagannatha and the cart festival at Puri) was introduced into the English language by an observer guilty of comparing an overwhelming and unstoppable force with an event physically equivalent to a tricycle mowing down a kitten.

Two carts bearing a Jagannath murti. Venice, CA: the Calcutta of the southland. Be careful where you step.

I would like to congratulate ISKCON on the 30th anniversary of the Los Angeles Ratha Yatra. The people of your organization found it in themselves to create a dignified carnival atmosphere, which at times also reminded me of a circus; your personnel resembling the players of a sideshow.

Though I am a friend of the faith, I have some suggestions for future functions, which I hope you will not take as jab from a repellent contrarian, but as a loving offering at the god’s red feet.

But first, the auspicious mantra for help in the endeavor:

HARI KRISHNA HARI KRISHNA
KRISHNA KRISHNA HARI HARI
HARI RAMA HARI RAMA
RAMA RAMA HARI HARI

The first observation and suggestion concerns the layout of your function. I often find it useful to prepare for formal criticism by imagining the subject and then abstracting from all content, almost as if I am contemplating a mandala.

The problem with your layout was that you had crap scattered all over the place. When you have a rug and you are treating it with a brush, it is usually helpful to apply strokes in a single area and work outward, to thoroughly shake off the dust. Substitute curious visitor for rug,
baldheaded minion for brush, and gelt for dust. You have grasped the very idea.

ISKCON arranged a number of educational displays for review by acute members of the public. This one is about how dudes turn into different things, or something.

Some sophisticated Socrates once posed a question about reincarnation: “If the only thing that floats through the reincarnational ether is the sum of all souls, how the fuck do you explain population explosions?”

Answer: Insects and microbes! Since around the 19th century, humans have taken great strides in the sciences of agriculture and medicine. As time passes, medicine annihilates an increasing number of microbes and other tiny buggers. Agricultural pesticides take care of the relatively big, juicy buggers. Insects and microorganisms are then reborn as human babes.

This explanation is very elegant because it accounts for the decreasing quality of human beings while firmly cementing our queer Eastern dogma.

This display questioned evolutionary theory. I could not read any of the panels in depth because I was chased away by a stocky man with a sloping forehead and enormous brow ridges.

Low right: an extant example of Cro-Magnon man.
Special comments: Odor like curry, but definitely not curry.

Jagannatha is represented by the black face (right) set on the green ribbon. I haven’t a clue as to the identity of his buddies, but they are probably some obscure north Indian gods with relatively few worshipers.

ISKCON, in its usual scrupulous fashion, seems to have transformed Jagannatha into a mode of the ghee-eating Krishna. I imagine this served as ISKCON’s excuse to put on this ridiculous fund-raiser, which depressingly lacked the gore of its Indian predecessor.

On Tuesday, The Guardian ran a report by Felicity Lawrence which raised questions about the safety of soy and its byproducts. Holding to the great tradition of “special reports” by hauling up a red flag bearing a concise warning at the expense of boring niceties, the information in the column is entertainment with public service pretensions.

I had time to concentrate on a single excerpt, the claims made by Dr. Fitzpatrick after the charming parrot anecdote. Nevertheless, the article contains many other notable tidbits. As a whole, this article may be of particular concern to vegetarians.

*

“We discovered quite quickly,” he [Fitzpatrick] recalls, “that soya contains toxins and plant oestrogens powerful enough to disrupt women’s menstrual cycles in experiments. It also appeared damaging to the thyroid.”

Unfortunately, Lawrence is not clear whether Fitzpatrick means that the toxins and phytoestrogens occur in soy beans at a significant level. The passage might simply mean that soy contains a chemical capable of disrupting menstrual cycles at a certain concentration.

With a similar sort of ambiguity, the last sentence about thyroid damage might refer to soy phytoestrogens in a certain concentration, or it might refer to soy beans, edamame, or tofu. That is, chemicals in soy, or soy in its many edible forms.

An article at About.com suggests that Fitzpatrick’s claim about toxins and plant oestrogens refers to a single study held in the United Kingdom, during which premenopausal women were given 60 grams of soy protein for one month. (1)

There is a difference, and it remains to be seen whether it is a practical difference, between soy protein and other soy products like edamame or tofu.

The final assertion about apparent ill effects on the thyroid refers to Fitzpatrick’s published assertion that soy products may potentially tamper with thyroid function. Fitzpatrick contends that the potential warrants soy abstinence by individuals with hypothyroidism. (2)

Later in the article, Lawrence proceeds to alert us of other questions raised by Fitzpatrick such as whether it is safe to serve developing children soy milk and whether it is safe to feed infants soy formula.

A cursory glance is also taken at soy’s contribution to illegal rainforest clearing and perhaps the ironic possibility that soy protein may contribute to the solvency of factory farming.

Notes
1. “Soy’s Thyroid Dangers” http://thyroid.about.com/cs/soyinfo/a/soy_3.htm
2. Ibid.

The International College of Surgeons operates a museum in a Gold Coast mansion. Standing outside the building, looking at the facade, I wonder whether the institution is of any consequence. I glance to my left, at a statue of a physician holding an ailing victim, and put the doubt to rest.

My ass follows suit, parking itself on the ancient Gold Coast curb. I flip my laptop open and seal some kind of union between old and new, type in the name of the grand old institution while taking a moment to meditate upon the words in the hope of opening a channel with Hippocrates or Galen.

The College mission statement glows on the screen at mid-day! Galen squeals through the channel that my mind has hewn through the bedrock of the ages. Unless this is a case of bad ear, and what I hear is in fact a trumpet blaring for the College creed.

This mission statement is told through what I think is a minimalist graphic of an inverted tree called “Missions”, which seems to be held in place by the roots of “Teach”, “Research”, “Communicate”, and “Lead”. I’m amazed that such men of science are equally skilled in the art of allegory. But I confess that I’m far too dull to understand this tree. The whole situation reminds me of the time that L. Ron Hubbard contacted me about the 12 Rundowns of Superpower, which would, according to Hubbard, herald in the New Flag Mecca.

Below the tree, we have a burned orange triangle called “Goals”, which has been superimposed on a Venn diagram. The first class is “Explore New Horizons”, the second class is “Active Participation”, and the third class is “One World, One Organization”.

“Using our vision and missions, we reach our goals. We explore new horizons. We ensure active participation. We create one world, with one organization.”

I think that before involving oneself with an institution, one ought to become familiar with its philosophy. Because, with that multifaceted, luminous, and heavenly kernel, one holds the key to the institution’s life and workings. Since men smart enough to draft a philosophy are always strong enough for unwavering consistency. One necessitates the other like the two heads on the double headed dong.

Actually, I pulled all of that from a William James lecture. You see, I prattle on in this tone, and then I pontificate. I wag my jaws (fingers?) some more, and then I pontificate.

The museum lobby is cramped and drab. A wheelchair ramp leads to a marble platform, which connects to three flights of stairs. In an alcove to my right, a homely secretary pecks away at a keyboard. Her friend, a girl in an untucked oxford shirt, emerges from the office appearing to have swished a mouthful of dish soap. She takes the fee from me like a swaggering Alsatian dominatrix, shakes her bushy tail back into the secretarial alcove and barks something at her companion.

The first floor exhibit is devoted to snake oils of old. This replication of a 19th century pharmacy is explained to visitors by a robot with oscillating eyebrows. The pharmacy room is highly educational and I think that it snuffs the reputation talking robots have as special education teaching aids.

I climb a flight of stairs and reach a cute little display on Eastern medicine.

I remember that on a visit to Thailand, I overheard another American doting on the architectural abilities of the south Asians. He remarked that if the Thai’s had concentrated on rocket science instead of pagoda building, they would have beat us to the moon by one hundred years.

As I look at what appears to be a diagram concerning acupuncture, I can only nod my head in agreement.

As long as we concern ourselves with heads, here’s a trepanning drill.

Anxious? Depressed? Maybe you need to take your brain for a breather. For those in the dark, trepanning is the time honored process of drilling a hole into the skull to give the poor brain a little sunlight. Historically, this seems to have been motivated by the belief that evil spirits could become trapped in the brain and cause mental illness.

Today, trepanning is making something of a come back among so-called “modern primitives” and other morons who hold that the trepan hole allows for a release of pent-up skull pressure. This release is a putative avenue toward child-like “well being” (i.e. retardation). This is all based on the analogy that: i) you feel good when you’re a kid because ii) kids have craniums that are still “closing” and therefore permeable, so iii) you should make your skull permeable again.

History becomes a joker by making what was once a cure a symptom.

A security guard points to this trepanned skull.

“Lo, the author of our mission statement,” he pauses reflectively, “a writer of great humanity and originality. What is more, a thinker so involute that perhaps one or two could really follow him.”

A large painting of an antebellum or Civil War amputation. This reminds me of domestic plane flights in a number of ways. Particularly, the contents of the five dollar snack box.

But anyway. I hope this communicates the unenlightened brutality of a former age and the great strides we have taken.

What isn’t there to like about calcium oxalate deposits taken from the human body? The stones on the low right resemble a beautiful gem like tiger’s eye. One formation on the top left resembles the yolk from a hard boiled egg, while that on the top right is the spitting image of oceanic coral!

Imagine that. To be so fecund as to have the beginnings of a reef growing inside of you!

Perhaps it is unfathomable Nature reacting to the destruction of her reefs by unscrupulous sea go-ers? She refuses to be hampered by the petty ways of man and curses their race by turning them into living sculptures of gradually ossifying torment!

Vaginal and anal specula from ancient Rome.

23 June 2006

It is a wonder that the sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is not more widely cultivated in American regions that will sustain it, as it is a resilent plant of rarely paralleled beauty and amazing utility.

But do not mistake this for a complaint. Unimaginative gardeners ease our pursuit of novelty by granting us great frontiers, and as long as the mass of them subscribe to insipid Martha Stewartism, they also make it very easy for us to seem like badass motherfuckers, which is the sole aim of horticulture.

Lotus seeds are roughly the size of an almond and tend to resemble petrified olives. They are sheathed by a dark outer shell, the surface of which is very similar to a jawbreaker in solidity and texture. This shell is impervious to water. In addition to this protective coat, the seed contains a preservative enzyme, which has been found to potentiate viability for centuries.

Germination requires that we breach the seed coat.

Many gardeners saw a channel into the seed coat, working down to the pale inner contents. It does not matter where one saws this channel provided that one does not drive too far into a vital part of the seed embryo. As a preference, I always saw a single end off with a sharp serrated knife. Some people use power tools, but this is ludicrous and unnecessary.

The image below (courtesy of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew) depicts numerous cross sections that provide a good idea of just how much shell must be removed.

I try to tamper with as little of the tan bit as possible by cutting along the yellow indicators marked on the far left seed, though one may cut or chisel away any part of the dark brown shell. Simply bear in mind that the entire purpose of this operation is to allow moisture into the seed.

The seed must now soak in water sustained at a temperature of 77-80° F. Obviously this means that most gardeners without heating pads are practically confined to a summer germination attempt.

I suggest starting seeds in two liter soda bottles because they will capacitate a large number of seeds. Yet it would be equally possible and perhaps beneficial in some cases to start seeds in a shot glass or a whisky barrel. A general maxim for this plant is that it is very hard to botch the germination process. Possibilities abound.

Over the next two weeks a series of juvenile shoots should grow to the top of the starting vessel. Upon reaching the surface, these shoots usually unfurl into small floating pads. This marks a good time to transplant into a permanent container.

Prepare this vessel by adding roughly two inches of plant media. Heavy clay garden soil is ideal, but commercial aquatic mixes are readily available if you should so choose.

The roots and meandering rhizomes of the lotus will completely colonize a container of this size (4 gallons) in about a year. After this period, it is advisable (but by no means necessary) to place the system of rhizomes in a larger container.

I have noticed that this is best done in winter, while the plant is dormant (not applicable in the tropics).

During the dormant period, one may drain the existing container. After pouring off the water, it should be easy to dislodge the plant by flipping its container. The rhizome system should flop out like a pancake.

Embed this ‘pancake’ in the new container’s media and place the vessel in full sun.

A year old plant after one month of active growth.

A note from the 15th:

I stepped on a bee today. I don’t have many run ins with the hive dwellers, which is probably what made the pain of the sting so surprising. I assumed I had stepped on a nail or a shard of glass. The stinger twitched in the joint of my tender little toe until I bravely extracted it, along with a writhing bundle of venom pumping innards. With my teeth.

(after, of course, killing the bee with a jackknife)

The toe has puffed up into a mass of flesh that looks more like a mongoloid’s nape than a digit.

No rose without a thorn, but many a thorn without a rose.

Jun. 25th

8AM

Just when you think you have sustained the worst possible sting, some greater power smirks, knowing something greater can be thought.

This bite is just incapacitating. It is an obstacle to all comfortable living. Plus, I have to explain it to my housemates to dispel the easy assumption that it’s conjunctivitis.

12PM

My housemate Kevin took a look at my eye and proceeded to tell me a story. He once stayed in a paralytic rehabilitation center where a service worker sustained a bite of the same species.

The worker casually walked through the rec. room to the shock of some relaxing quad’s.

“It’s the size of a golfball!”

“I’M GONNA POP THIS MOTHERFUCKER”, said the service worker, intent on adding some flavor to the day by seasoning it with his juices.

And he darted off to the men’s room, tailed by several squeaky wheelchairs, whose occupants trembled in anticipation of the squashing.

He then stood in front of a mirror thronged by patients, and slapped the bulging eyelid between two open palms. This forced a quick spurt of gore through the bite hole, which was immediately corked by a gooey green string.

This green eye slime caused the service worker to faint, but this fainting episode also meant that an aghast paraplegic would break his fall, resulting in a collapsed wheelchair and a renewed and forceful ooze from the bite hole.

Kevin dived to the worker’s rescue, wad of toilet paper in hand. He applied pressure to the leaking eye, which pulsed between his fingers, a pulsing that he thought signified the eyeball’s imminent expulsion from its socket.

8PM

But just when you have the bite that than which nothing greater can be thought,

you discover that there is something greater that than which nothing greater can be thought.

Which is impossible.

Now everything in the room goes into the washing machine or the incinerator. I have changed my clothes and I want nothing more than sleep or a merciful lightning bolt from the Deity.

9PM

The ridiculous summer heat is keeping me from sleep and the bites are still coming. I have stripped down to nothing, and now I will sleep in the nude with nothing to cover me.

11PM

I am freezing and all articles of cloth are suspect. This is the last resort: The Emergency Blanket. I don’t know whether the things that prey on me jump, fly, or crawl, but I’ll suffocate them or steam them to death in my sweat, wrapped in this shimmering robe of death.

Jun. 25th

9AM

A text message from: Ecce homo
To N. Castillo:

One flea (?) bite along my waist (consequently exposed to the pressure of my trousers) is over four times the size of a quarter.

3PM

I just received a single cellphone ring from Natalie.

Which I guess means that she returned my call as a reflex before she realized she had no desire to talk to me. =p

I promptly sent her a text message, which practically obligated her to call again… And she did.

She referred to me as “buddy”, told me that a flea bite four times the size of a quarter might very well be infected, and advised a dose of Benadryl.

The really funny thing is that I received the impression that she just called to chide me for neglecting myself.

4PM

Whatever is pictured above has evolved into some kind of random swelling that I can’t really laugh at anymore. By random swelling, I mean swelling that appears on remote parts of the body without any apparent connection with other swollen regions.

There is something greater than something greater that than which nothing greater can be thought.

Which is impossible.

6PM

Now my ears have become so swollen that they have lifted off the side of my head. Now they point forward, with my eyes, instead of pointing to my sides, toward my shoulders.

I’m convinced that instead of some dread allergy, these dramatic physical changes actually occasion my metamorphosis into a large monkey.

I realize that the swelling is not evident in this photo. It eventually became severe, with my ears swelling to about twice their size (eliciting Dumbo comments from dad). My eye also swelled shut.

My mother worried that my throat would soon follow, so she whisked me off to the hospital.

(I on the other hand, warmly reflected on the prospect )

That alcohol should make me feel so good is at the same time unsettling. Not unsettling enough to send a shiver up my spine, but just maybe to the utmost degree that a mundane thought may be disturbing-the way it buzzes around one’s head to make a nuisance of itself.

Then the entire beauty of drunkeness is that this pest can be effortlessly plucked from the air and one can lay in peace.

There is the platitude that people drink to get away, but this isn’t true. We drink to dance with the world which we are in and of and walking up and down in, to have courage to speak, and to stimulate vomit. Not because the world really makes us sick, but because we are filled with so much vomit.

Which is not to say that we are ugly people, (glug glug) but of course it is!

Yesterday, I stood in the express checkout lane with Simon. We were preceded by this crusty ex-pirate-looking guy with no less than six casks of cheap gin in his hold.

What someone at this man’s age might have been doing with such a quantity of gin-and moreover-such an impotable liquor, escapes the understanding (or at least the modest understanding).

The Deity did not endow us with a modest understanding.

Simon surmised the simonization of several special sausages at a sissy’s Saturday night soirée.

I, utterly aghast (but I think mostly bitter about not being able to use the verb ’simonize’), postulated the gin being put to use along with some kind of morning regimen of bedside bangers and mash (which should refer to a sex act even if it doesn’t). The Deity gave me extravagance, but Fate always gives me the short end of the stick..

Curiousity eventually broke us and we just leaned over the counter to watch the swill ring up on the register and the cashier rip off every hobo-proof bottle lock with his key to the kingdom of fuckfac-edness.

The tally stopped a pin short of $80 USD (which must betray the quality of the gin). The cashier told Captain Hook that he saved nine dollars.

Simon started laughing shamelessly.

I couldn’t understand what was so funny until I remembered that we are The Assholes.

The Assholes that inhabit the antipode of The Angels.[1]

1. I would like the kind reader to note that ‘antipode’ sounds like the name of a sausage-shaped anal hemorrhoid.

What does everyone say about the Asian pear?

‘It’s the pear that tastes like an apple, but juicier’

It didn’t remind me of eating a pear or an apple, but I definitely thought juicy was the right word.

Teeth.