Sunny way home

 

"EGAL" (Whatever) - A point of view that would do us good from time to time. And me close to my home:

Two signs

Saw this today in the city, no idea who made the signs or who put them there:

"Geil, endlich 4 neue College-Blöcke" - Wicked, finally 4 new spiral-bound notepads

"Kein BAUM ist EGAL" - No TREE is INDIFFERENT

Comparing pays

Christmas is long over now, but the next Christmas will surely come. For this Christmas I checked my sister's amazon wish list and found a liqueur that I knew a certain store close to my place sells, too. Amazon had it for about 16 Euros (about 18 US Dollars). I went to the store close to me and found the last 2 bottles of the liqueur my sister wanted... for only 11 Euros (about 12.42 US Dollars). It was only a bit strange for me to pay for it, because I don't drink alcohol and now was standing with a liqueur bottle at the cashout.

The moral of the story: Even if online shopping is comfortable, it may pay to compare.

Taking and giving

Last month I wanted to go shopping and found an envelop wet from the rain on the pavement. I picked it up and found that it wasn't an open one, but a closed letter. I walked the path a bit further, because there would be a mailbox. Until now anyway. When I reached that corner, I looked around. Where was the mailbox? Had I not paid attention? I hadn't used it that often so far, but it should have been here somewhere. Then I saw it: the shadow and the holes from the attachment where the mailbox had been the past years. It had been taken away! I used the entrance to the tram station and went to the inner city to throw the envelop in the mailbox there.

By the way I had to go to the inner city, because the post office at the townhall closed last year, as well as the one at the central station. I found out the one at the townhall doesn't exist anymore when I went there to send a letter and found the building closed. I was surprised about the closing of the office at the central station at the same time, which I found out, when I wanted to get some money from the cash machine there and didn't find it. Only after walking the many hallways in the building and was standing in front of the door where the counters had been, did I see a note about the closing of the office. Really great. Hadn't it been possible to pin a note on all the entrances of the building, instead of letting me walk through all the long hallways to almost the counter room first? If I understood it correctly, the thought was to have all the possibilities of service in one single office. A research on the internet revealed that I wasn't the only person angry about the closing of the office at the central station. The parking options for car owners were seemingly better at the central station than at the inner city.

Around the same time I wanted to dispose of my recycling paper and walked to the container nearby. (The same container where I had found the religious figure.) But when I arrived after about 5 minutes of walking with the full cardboard box, I found no container. Just like with the mailbox, I looked around in surprise. The containers had been here for sure. Two paper banks and one for white, green and brown glass. But there was not one container! Angry I walked the way back and further to the other containers, which are inconveniently placed so you have to stand right on the street to dispose of your trash. At least those were still there, but the paper banks were pretty full and I had trouble getting my recycling paper I there to dispose it. On my way back I toyed with the idea of writing my landlady to give us back our paper bin. It doesn't cost extra money anyway. Our “housekeeper” had argued that it had been taken away for “fire safety reasons”, because nobody would take care to empty it, but it got stuffed overflowing. I discarded that thought to write to my landlady soon however. Surely she'd disagree or take her time to get our bin back, like she had been with other things in the past.

Today I walked a slightly different way back home from shopping than usual. I wondered what kind of containers there were just at the corner of our street. Were those new containers in fact? Indeed! We have new paper banks just very near by at the corner at our street! I walked home to get rid of the shopping and picked up my cardboard box which was overflowing with paper and dedicated the new paper banks.

I'm curious though that suddenly 2 paper bands are able to stand at the corner of the street. I had written to the city a while ago, because on the map online that street corner had been marked for paper banks, but didn't have any and I asked if it was possible to add some there. They negated that arguing that the vehicles to collect the paper were too big to drive there. Suddenly it seems possible after all. Suits me.

Jeffrey

This story is fiction and at the same time true for so many people (especially teenagers). Not exactly the same way as in this story here, but in different ways. The end is tragic, but true as well for so many people in our culture. I wish I could say "have fun" or something. But this story just isn't fun at all. First I thought of summarizing the following story. But then I thought that I can't do it. I (or in fact Daniel Quinn, thanks, Daniel for sending it so fast!) cut it a bit, but this is what Ishmael tells (the story can be found on page 196-198 softcover edition of "My Ishmael"):

         "Among her friends in college," Ishmael began, "my benefactor Rachel Sokolow counted a young man named Jeffrey, whose father was an affluent surgeon. Jeffrey became an important person in many lives at this time and later, because he presented people with a problem. He couldn't figure out what to do with himself. He was physically attractive, intelligent, personable, and talented at almost anything he turned his hand to. He could play the guitar well, though he had no interest in a musical career. He could take a good photograph, produce a good sketch, play the lead in a school play, and write an entertaining story or a provocative essay, but he didn't want to be a photographer, an artist, an actor, or a writer. He did well in all his classes but didn't want to be a teacher or a scholar and wasn't interested in following his father's footsteps or in pursuing a career in law, the sciences, mathematics, business, or politics. . . . In spite of all this, he seemed 'well-adjusted,' as it's called. . . .

         "Jeffrey's friends never tired of finding new ideas to present to him in hopes of awakening his interest. Wouldn't he enjoy reviewing films for the local newspaper? Had he ever thought of taking up scrimshaw or jewelry making? Cabinetry was put forward as a soul-satisfying occupation. How about fossil hunting? . . . Jeffrey's father was completely sympathetic with his inability to discover an enthusiasm and ready to support him in whatever exploration he might find worthwhile. If a world tour had any appeal, a travel agent would be put to work on it. If he wanted to try the life of an outdoorsman, equipment would be supplied, gladly. If he wanted to take to the sea, a boat would be made ready. . . . He shrugged it all off, politely, embarrassed to be putting everyone to so much trouble.

         "I don't want to give you the impression he was lazy or spoiled. He was always at the top of his class, always held a part-time job, lived in ordinary student housing, didn't own a car. He just looked at the world that was on offer to him and couldn't see a single thing in it worth having. His friends kept saying to him, 'Look, you can't go on this way. You've got too much going for you. You've just got to get some ambition, got to find something you want to do with your life!'

         "Jeffrey graduated with honors but without a direction. After hanging around his father's house for the summer, he went to visit some college friends who had just gotten married. He took along his knapsack, his guitar, his journal. After a few weeks he set out to visit some other friends, hitch-hiking. He was in no hurry. He stopped along the way, helped some people who were building a barn, earned enough money to keep going, and eventually reached his next destination. Soon it was getting on for winter and he headed home. He and his father had long conversations, played gin rummy, played pool, played tennis, watched football, drank beer, read books, went to movies.

         "When spring came, Jeffrey bought a second-hand car and set out to visit friends in the other direction. People took him in wherever he went. They liked him and felt sorry for him, he was so rootless, so ineffectual, so unfocused. . . .

         "The years drifted by in this way. Jeffrey watched old friends get married, raise children, build careers, build businesses, win a little fame here, a little fortune there  . . . while he went on playing his guitar, writing a poem now and then, and filling one journal after another. Just last spring he celebrated his thirty-first birthday with friends at a vacation cottage on a lake in Wisconsin. In the morning he walked down to the water, wrote a few lines in his journal, then waded into the lake and drowned himself."

Sad story, one would probably say and indeed many people I've told the story to did say it. It seems that something is wrong with Jeffrey. That's what everybody told him. Something was wrong with him. But I'd like to ask the reader of this story a question: Is it true? Is there really something wrong with Jeffrey?
Jeffrey's story is fiction and reality at the same time. There are so many young people committing suicide. Not because they are crazy, but because of their helplessness. Mother Culture tells us that there's something wrong about these peoples.
Jeffrey's story is loosely based on the life of Paul Eppinger. His father Charles published Paul's journal under the title "Restless Mind, Quiet Thoughts". There are also letter exchanges from father and son and Charles also added some explaining lines here and there.

In memory of Daniel Quinn (October 11, 1935 – February 17, 2018)

The Neuro-Logical Levels and the significance of our word choices

When I was studying inclusive education, they told us that body language and an “open body posture” was important when working with clients. But they didn't elaborate on that. So I had to do my own learning (mostly reading) about that. I came across Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). I won't go into the details about what that is. Part of what they did and still do is either checking out those that are good at something and find out how they do it that well, so they can teach others that aren't that good or know nothing about this activity. One of the people especially interested in researching how people do things is Robert Dilts. That quote I opened my previous post with was from the book “Dynamic Learning” by Robert Dilts and Todd Epstein and is a transcription of a seminar on learning and teaching.

One of the things Robert Dilts developed (this is also mentioned in “Dynamic Learnings” and other of his books) are the “Neuro-Logical Levels”, sometimes also just referred to as “Logical Levels” or “Levels of Learning”.

a) Identity – Who?

b) Believes and Values – Why?

c) Capabilies – How?

d) Behaviour – What?

e) Environment – Where and when?

Sometimes those levels even have another one before “Identity” which would be “Spirituality/Mission” asking “Who else?”. For the purpose of this post however, the 5 levels mentioned above are suffice. All the levels influence learning and influence each other. Though changes in the bottom levels won't have so much of an influence on the upper levels than changes on the top levels do on the levels below.

For example it is indeed more difficult to study at around noon right after you've eaten and your body is more focused on digestion and your belly than headspace and learning. I remember one of my teacher at university was really unfortunate to teach us fairly theory packed things in a seminar at noon. One time he noticed we were all just too tired to pay proper attention, he was kind enough to end the class early. I really appreciate that. Or when it's really hot in the summer and you already have all the windows open to get some air in, but there just is no wind outside, it may be difficult to stay focused.

Speaking of focus: What schools usually focus on is how the children are doing in performance. So that would be the behaviour level and how well they do it, rating their capabilities.

Things can get mixed up badly though with terrible consequences, when for example some child is not doing well in writing. We are quick to say that “the child is dyslexic”. Dyslexia is the term for when someone has problems with reading and/or writing. But check the levels above again. If you say someone”is dyslexic”, that's the identity level. It's on top of the levels. It influences all the other levels. And it's wrong. If what makes them bad is being poor at spelling, that's a capability level, not identity level. Sadly people identify with their symptoms fast and what once was a fairly low level of “bad spelling” may soon become “a dyslexic child” or “a child with learning disability”. Make a guess about which of those problems is easier to change?

Side-note: It must have been in eighth grade or somewhere around that time when the teachers taught us about puberty, sex and all that stuff. I remember we got a small book in religion class that I ended up giving to the school library. I'm not even sure if I stopped reading it at a certain point or if I did finish it and then gave it to the school library. In any case there was this paragraph where they explained that teenagers sometimes argue with their parents and are mean and bad towards them. The reader needn't worry though: “You can still change.” (Du kannst dich noch ändern.) That line just made me furious and I told as much to the librarian I handed my copy of the book to. Even back then I thought that a big part of being a teenager is about change and growing up and getting independent. To me at least some of the tantrums of teenagers is based on that growing up process and hormones and not so much about willingly being a bad person. So to tell a teenager then that they “can still change” seemed just a stupid thing to write in my opinion. Was it like if they didn't like who they were then, (e. g. with the tantrums) that it didn't mean they'd stay that way until they died? Well, of course not! I guess the word that offended me most was the word “can”. Granted, there are some bad adult people out there as well. I guess the authors of the book would suggest that they didn't take that chance to change. Generally for me that change was a given in my opinion and to make it a “You can still change” seemed really stupid.

So anyways the point I wanted to make in this post here is that we should be careful, especially with negative feedback to children on which level we make those comments. It will leave an impact. Some deeper than others depending on the level.

My last and best mathematics teacher

“Having a student identify with mathematics is really different than having them study it and try hard to learn it.” Robert Dilts (Robert B. Dilts/Todd A. Epstein: “Dynamic Learning”, Meta Publications, 1995)

I was always average at best in mathematics in school. In exam I'd write 3 or 4 (C or D in American grades). It's okay, but not great. In my final year in college we got a new teacher. I forgot why the other one didn't go on for the final year with us. What did surprise both my new teacher and me though was the fact that suddenly I'd write 1 (A) in exams! That's right. It left me speechless the first time it happened.

I believe that part of it was due to the fact that the new teacher would always start a new subject by talking about how it related to the real world outside. It's good to have some connection to the real world and not just working some abstract numbers and learning for exams only. Mind you, I barely remember anything from the mathematics now. It's 17 years ago. Just too long a time. But I still remember the action of talking real world first.

I wonder how much more students would be engaged in learning and studying beyond just for exams, if all teachers did that. It wasn't that the new mathematics teacher talked the whole first class about the connection. I don't remember how much time he spent. But even if it's just a couple of minutes and listing a couple of examples, at least it makes the subject more relatable, doesn't it? It doesn't have to be a long talk.

In the end I finished school still with an average 3 (C ) in mathematics, because they had to add up some exams before my 1 (A) exams and I pretty much blacked out in one exam that was part subject of the final exam as well. I'm not good at all in some areas of mathematics, because my brain just doesn't seem to get it, despite all the efforts of my teachers.

Beware of the red pen!

During the first couple of years at school, I remember we had moments where the teacher would read us a short text and we'd have to write it down to practise writing and spelling. I did pretty good back then. I barely made mistakes. I still have images in my mind of my writing being free from corrections and only at the end of it there would be a “Prima, Sarah!” (Great, Sarah!) For having no mistakes.

For my first two and a half years of school I lived up in Northern Germany. We had a text that had a sentence where I made a minor mistake about books on a shelf. During the Christmas break of my third year at school, we moved and I changed schools. In my new school we'd still write those texts the teacher was reading to us. Guess what? One time the teacher in my new school read the text about the books and I again I made the same mistake, that bit about the books on the shelf. That was in fact the only mistake I made that second time! My mother pointed out that I had made the same mistake the first time. I have no recollection of writing it the first time and how that went. But that's why I remember that sentence to this day actually: Not for writing it the first time, but for the mistake. The mistake I made twice, according to my mother.

I forgot where I read it. It's been a while. Part of the problem in the current school system and teaching system is that teachers focus on marking out what's wrong. Red pen marking out everything wrong. “Attention! Wrong!” If you're a good student making no or few mistakes, you're only left with a short, nice comment. If anything at all.

There seem to be teachers more recently, that let children write as they like and not correct them. That's what at least one co-worker once told me. Maybe some teachers don't want to discourage the children from writing by pointing out all the mistakes. But where would those end up that are in higher classes and still write the way they want to? There are certain set rules about how to spell and grammar and all that. You can't just ignore that. Sometimes you write different for certain effects and it's purposeful writing. Children need to learn the correct way first though. Or maybe the teachers are lazy? I've seen adults with bad writing, too. Also at a certain age hardly anybody points out mistakes. I don't know about the motivation of those teachers though. I hope there's more to this than... laziness?

How about instead encouraging the good students more and only focus on them? That way they'd feel pleased and confident to keep on doing what they do well. And the bad students might take interest in checking out how the good students do what they do well. Instead of the bad students feeling bad for their mistakes and the good students being only left with short comments? Just an idea.

This morning at the stop

Some sort of shells of nuts spread over a large area at the stop. The four darker spots are furthermore spits. Not the first time this happened, by the way.

The wrong door

The other day I entered the tram through the right entrance next to the driver. The tram was pretty packed. At the very front and the very back it's also very cramped for my taste. Next to me was a young man. The next three stops the exit was on the left side. On the third stop a couple of people passed us to exit. When he noticed that he was where he wanted to go out, too, he approached the driver, “Could you...?”, pointing at the closed right door. The driver couldn't contain a grin. The young man noticed his mistake himself without the driver needing to say something and exited still on time.

Nail clipping. The right hand first or the left hand first?

Since I just clipped my fingernails again, I came to think about a scene from "Nymphomaniac 1", not for the first time.

An old man meets a young woman and lets her live with him. He introduces himself as "Seligman", which seems to be an odd name. He explains that it means "the happy one". She calls herself Joe and asks if he is happy.

Seligman: Well, I suppose I am. - In my own way. Even if I'm the kind of person who cut the nails
of the right hand first.
Joe: What does that mean?
Seligman: Well, I divide humanity into two groups: the people who cut the nails on the left hand first,
and the people who cut the nails of the right hand first. My theory is that the people who cut the nails
of the left hand first, they're more light-hearted. They ... they have a tendency to enjoy life more, because they go straight for the easiest task, and save the difficulties for later. - So what do you do?
Joe: Always the left hand first. I don't think there's a choice. Go for the pleasure first, always. And then when you've done the left hand, only the right hand remains. That's... that's the easiest one left.
Seligman: I never thought of it like that. - Well, you're never too old. Never too old to learn.

Which hand do you clip first? Let me know in the comments.

The whale with over 80 plastic bags in its stomach

Meant to write about this a while ago already. At the beginning of this month it became known that a pilot whale in Thailand had fought for its life. Already during the rescue attempt it threw up 5 plastic bags. The rescue attempt failed and the whale died eventually. An autopsy revealed 80 plastic bags in its stomach, weighing up to 8 kg (18 lb).

80+ plastic bags in the stomach was too much for the whale. When will it be too much for the humans? For the rest of the world?

Rain

Heavy rains the past weeks inevitably have made me think of certain movie quotes.

I have repeatedly watched the first 6 episodes of "The Tick" months ago. In episode four (Party Crashers) the vigilante Overkill comes back to his boat, which is equipped with artificial intelligence and answers to the name of "Dangerboat". Soon after that Overkill wants to leave again.

Dangerboat: You just got back.
Overkill: Crime has overtaken this city. There must be punishment. They're all animals, anyway. It's time for the real rain to come and wash all this scum off the street.

Movie fans might remember similar words. Dangerboat also recognises a certain similarity and answers accordingly to that.

Danerboat: Travis Bickle.
Overkill: What?
Dangerboat: Taxi Driver.
Overkill: Shut the fuck up.

For comparison Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro) in "Taxi Driver":

May 10th. Thank God for the rain which has helped wash away the garbage and trash off the sidewalks. I'm workin' long hours now, six in the afternoon to six in the morning. Sometimes even eight in the morning, six days a week. Sometimes seven days a week. It's a long hustle but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, three fifty a week. Sometimes even more when I do it off the meter. All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the street.

Fred on the roof

Fred on the roof

Fred was sitting on the roof.

His light blond hair was clearly visible against the brown roof tiles and is light blue eyes were shining. Yes, today, now on the roof was one of the few moments of his young life, where they were shining. They were sparkling like a happy leaf fire in autumn.

But the crowd of people below could not see that. Today was the day the whole neighbourhood was paying attention to him. All those years, the whole damned 14 years he had been in the world, he didn't get that much attention as he did now.

When someone wanted to end their life, “oh“ and “awww“ came from everywhere.

And before that?

Like ants they were scuttling on the street, helpless, small creatures, to serve him.

God wasn't called God anymore. He was called Fred now.

Everyone looked up at him. Everyone obeyed him. Only thought: don't jump down there.

Fred as the puppeteer. Ladies and gentlemen, the time is up. Red or green? Death or life? Jumping or not?

Fred stood up.

“Oh!”, it came from everywhere like an echo. Some screamed “No!” and “Boy, watch out!” or “Boy, don't do that!”

Fred lifted his arms as if to jump.

What would be his last words?

“You're all so stupid!”, he screamed from the top of his lunges, opened the roof window and went back into the house.

I wrote this story in 2001 or 2002 when we were covering short stories in German and some fellow students complained that the stories we talked about were dull. Well, the point of short stories is not to be exciting in the first place anyway. When I came back from school, I remembered a task I had read in a book on writing stories or books. I didn't quite like the task originally. Now somehow I had a story in my head. Imagine a person on the roof of a house, about to jump. What would be his or her last words? What would be his or her last sentence?

I didn't want my person to jump, hence the ending of my story. I wrote it and brought it to school to the next lesson. The teacher agreed to include it into the lesson. Of course I had to read it out aloud myself. I hate reading out aloud.

I changed one sentence a little bit, because it turned out people understood it another way I meant it to. Otherwise the story is without any further changes and the way I wrote it originally.

The factory of the future

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

Warren Gameliel Bennis (1925-2014)

Religious signs

On March, 30th I went to throw my waste paper in the containers a couple of streets from here. Next to them was a big bag. I was curious and peeked inside. Inside were several dishes and a statue. I hesitated for a short moment and then I took the statue and took it home with me. It's about 21.5 cm (about 8.5 in) and weighs a tidy 1.3 kg (about 2.9 lb). No idea who would dispose of something like that. I would suppose that a religious relative died and the other relatives didn't have any use for such a figure and didn't know how to get rid of it in another way or didn't want to sell it. Strange though that this figure was dumped so shortly before Easter. What a timing!

Yesterday I went outside for a short time, walked our street and saw something round, golden and shiny on the sidewalk. I bent down to pick it up, believing it was one of the coins we have for shopping trolleys, although it obviously has a small hook, which those coins usually don't have. When I turned this thing around in my hand, I was baffled. It wasn't a coin, but a religious pendant. Fairly solid, too. I can't bend it. It's not a cheap toy. I put it on my keychain and wondered, why I found such religious things twice in such a short period of time. Me of all people.

I think, I'll hold on to both for a while, until I decided on what to do with them. Sell online?

Friday, 13th

When I was studying inclusive education ages ago, I made one part of an exam as a presentation about phobias, which is a fear that's often very strong and limiting and often tied to specific situations. My presentation also was about how to cure phobias.

Very fitting for this day today there actually is a term for people with the fear of the number 13. Such a fear is called triskaidekaphobia (from the Greek τρεισκαίδεκα, treiskaídeka = thirteen). There are actually places where there are only 12 floors of a building or they skipped the 13^th floor and the buttons on an elevator only shows floor 12 followed by 14.

There is also paraskevidekatriaphobia (from Latin parasceuē or Greek αρασκευή, parascēves = Friday), the fear of Friday, 13^th. Movies like the series of horror movies “Friday, 13th” certainly don't help with that fear.

Fun fact: The fear of long words, maybe like the two phobias mentioned above, is called hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. A made-up word from the wrong spelling of the English “hippopotamus”, the Latin “monstrum” (unusually large; monster), the Latin “sesqui” (= a foot and a half) and “pedal” from Latin “pedālis” (= the foot or part belonging to the foot). One and a half foot probably a figurative way of describing the length of the word. Actually in German the part “sesquipedalio” is spelled with 2 “p”: “sesquippedalio”. Probably a misspelling and through copy and paste people just spread it on.

Jews maybe don't understand such fears very much. Saturday is Shabbat for them, meaning their day of rest at the end of the week. They start celebrating that starting Friday evening. Also Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish coming of age ritual, is typically celebrated on the Shabbat after the boy has had his 13^th birthday. The Bat Mitzvah for girls is celebrated when they're 12 years old.

The Good Friday on the other hand is not really a good day for Christians, since it's the day of the crucifixion of Jesus. Even the economy, which could otherwise probably be called fairly rational, called several bad days “Black Friday”, either specific days of an economy crisis or stock market crash.

Thirteen by itself is often considered as not a good number. Jesus had 12 apostles. The day and the night are structured in 12 hours. The year has 12 months. So thirteen is often considered as “the devil's dozen”. Looking at it from a mathematical point of view, 13 is a prime number. Which means a whole number greater than 1 that cannot be made by multiplying other whole numbers.

These are only a few examples and possible explanations why specifically Friday, 13^th is considered to be such a bad day. Although you can find studies on the internet from insurance companies for example that show that statistically there are no more accidents (material damage or damage to persons) on a Friday, 13^th. The reason could possibly be though, because some are actually so scared of this specific day that they take that day off work and stay home, much like others who reportedly plan their holiday in such a way that they don't go on a Friday, 13^th.

I myself learned from a fairly young age that Friday, 13^th is a normal day and not necessarily something bad will happen on that day. In primary school I was part of the recorder group and once we rehearsed for a play on the supposedly bad day. The rehearsal when without anything bad happening.

When I was studying however there was something funny when one of our professors said good-bye to us on the last lesson before the exam telling us that we'll see each other again on Friday, 13^th for the exam. Cries of shock broke out in class then. Obviously we all knew somehow that the exams would be on a Friday and also that we had exams on the 13^th. But those two bad days were not in our heads together as Friday, 13^th, until the professor said his good-bye!

Fun facts:

1. Each year there is at least 1, but no more than 3 Fridays on the 13^th of a month!
2. If the year is no leap-year and February has a Friday, 13^th, so will March and November!
3. The shortest interval between 2 Friday, 13^th is exactly 4 weeks! Namely when fun fact number 1 applies with the days between February and March, since February only has 28 days.
4. The longest interval between 2 Friday, 13^th is exactly 61 days or 14 months! That's when the day is in August. Then the next bad day is only in October the following year. Or if the day is in June with the next Friday, 13^th only being in September the following year.

How is Friday, 13^th for you? Did something bad happen to you on this day? Or did actually something good happen to you on such a day? Do you think about this date or is it just a normal day like any other for you?

Happy Friday, 13^th everyone!

Riots because of Nutalla discount in France

I first read about that in the Guardian article 'They are like animals': French shoppers brawl over cut-price Nutella. The supermarket chain Intermarché had given a 70 % discount on 950 g jars of the chocolate hazelnut spread of Nutella, which made it cost 1.41 Euros instead of 4.50 Euros. This had led to massive runs and riots. Nutalla was sold out fast in some places and they sold amounts in one day what would have been sold in three months normally. A German article of Der Westen reported in the video of no injuries. The Guardian article however does mention that a woman took a box and hair of another one pulled out for example. For a jar of Nutella? Seriously? According to the Der Westen article they are working on a discount maximum of 34 % for foodstuff now. I have doubts however that this will prevent riots like that however.

Corpse disposal

For our plastic and metal disposal (metal in the sense of tin cans) we've got yellow bags or bins, which are collected by the garbage collection every 14 days.

Weeks ago I walked our street before the garbage collection had come and found the following, which I photographed right away:

The genius of masks

Halloween. The time for costumes and disguises. One of the few days in the year where the are accepted and worn deliberately and openly also in public more then otherwise. Time for me to write a post on masks, a kind of disguise of the face.

I'm mostly unaware of Asian cultures and also movies. It's not a particular interest of mine to watch Asian movies or dealing with Asian cultures, at least not in detail. A friend of mine that I only know via E-Mail contact so far, wrote to me a while ago that the expressionless masks of the Japanese No Theatre are fascinating to him.

Two days ago I watched the two part movie “It” (from 1990). No wonder that people are afraid of clowns after such a movie. Clowns made up or with mask scare a lot of people. Personally I don't quite understand that. There are scary masks and especially clown masks. Add to that the aggressive behaviour of mask wearing people from last year, I can understand the fear of people like them, but not the general fear of clowns as such. I don't mean this as a criticism. I would very much like to understand what scares people so much about clowns. Maybe there are readers that are afraid of clowns and could explain it. Feel free to leave me a comment!

Masks of criminals are meant to conceal the true identity for them to be unknown and therefore free from punishment. Superheroes on the other hand use masks to hide their own identity for criminals that may otherwise hurt or even kill them more easily without their costume and corresponding weapons. But the lives of the people the superheroes love is also protected by the mask of the hero. Because it could be a leverage for the criminal to kidnap important people and threaten their life to force the superhero to do certain things, as can be seen for example in “The Dark Knight” after the Joker learns that Batman/Bruce Wayne cares a lot about Rachel Dawes and the Joker gives the order to kidnap her.

A mask of a particular kind is worn by the anti-hero Rorschach from “Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Over the course of the story Rorschach is caught and described by the psychiatrist who questions him as “fascinatingly ugly”. The name Rorschach originates from the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach who invented a test named “Rorschach test”, which are ink blots images that the person has to interpret and say what they see in them. The blots are a symmetrical and mostly black. There are also some with more colours. Rorschach from Watchmen worked with clothes as a young man and during that time he gets a special cloth that is white with black, moving and continuously changing blots. Originally he makes a dress from that for a customer, but she eventually disregards it as ugly. Later he uses that cloth to make himself a mask from it with symmetrical black blots that keep changing. Rorschach calls this mask his “face”. After he is ambushed and caught by the police, the mask gets ripped off and he screams, “No! My face! Give it back!” Regardless of Rorschach's personal attitude towards his mask, the description of “my face” for is (actual) mask seems fitting though. A face is usually moving and changes in relation to emotions. The psychiatrist notes however that Rorschach's face is expressionless and finds it difficult to tell what really goes on in him emotionally. Regardless of Rorschach's own attitude towards his (actual) mask, it therefore seems actually fitting when he calls it his "face". His (actual) mask is moving and his (actual) face is expressionless like other masks usually are. It's not necessarily noticed by the reader or viewer of the movie, but the blots on Rorschach's “face” are not only moving, but are in fact linked to his emotions and show identical blot patterns at different times when the same or similar emotions can be assumed!

I also want to mention the post “The Hidden Genius of RORSCHACH's Mask! (Watchmen)“ by Scott Niswander from NerdSync. Among other things he points out in his post that the moment and timing of unmasking is often a bit strange choice. Often the masked person is unconscious or at least bound or otherwise hindered to resist and their identity unknown. The unmasking therefore is a sort of humiliation, because the identity is then revealed at least for the person taking off the mask of the one wearing it. The interesting thing about this is that with this there is a possibility to completely eliminate the masked person, meaning to kill them. But the unmasking and with this revelation of the secret of who is behind the mask, seems a stronger urge for the person that is with the masked person at that moment. Scott Niswander mentions a scene from “Spider-Man 2” and “The Dark Knight” for this.

In regards to unmasking or taking off masks let's one more time refer to Watchmen. Rorschach's true identity (or in his case probably better: identity without “his face”) is revealed to the reader and other people in the story with the aforementioned arrest. He does have “his face” back on for the final fight though. Normally every masked person would resist even at the threat that his masked may be taken away. Understandably so, because the secret identity up until that moment is at risk and also the possible security of beloved persons, as mentioned above. Rorschach, too, resists and screams for his face during his arrest. At the end of Watchmen however he himself takes off his face, his mask and faces his final enemy this way.

In 2012 a series of books came out that showed individual Watchmen characters before the events of Watchmen. Accordingly the series is called “Before Watchmen”. Of course there is also a story about Rorschach by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo. Then and now the story itself doesn't seem to appeal to many people. Like with all stories, I think, this is a matter of personal taste and different people have different tastes. Regarding unmasking there is however one interesting moment in “Before Watchmen: Rorschach”, too. Over the course of the story he gets beat up by a group of bad people and several of the henchmen eventually keep him in check. One of the henchmen wants to take off Rorschach's mask, to see what the fearful Rorschach looks like without the mask. But his boss calls him back and is noticeably disappointed by the fairly short man (described in Watchmen with a height of 168 cm/5' 6 '') to have him caught and defenceless that easily, “Rorschach. Huh. For some reason, I thought... Dude, you don't measure up to your myth. I mean, what the hell? I cocked up this elaborate scheme just to take you down? What was I thinking? Big bad Rorschach. Well, bad anyway Frankly, I'm disappointed in myself. That I stooped to your level. No, no, lucky Pierre. You know what's under that mask? Nothing that matters. In this case, the mask makes the corpse.” After they beat him up some more and seemingly leave him there to die, he adds, “And the front page.“ In another moment of that story one of the bad guys gets his hands on Rorschach's mask and for a moment he can take on Rorschach's identity, because if nobody knows who is behind the mask, a lot of people could be underneath it. Hurm...