Con-Templative

Sometimes there are awe-inspiring pieces of writing. And sometimes, there are pieces of writing that inspire other things. I have found a template for political speeches of a certain kind. It is here. It has gone memetic.

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"When I made the decision to [execute life-changing event] in [year], [something] was not a key factor. Loss of [precious something], [painful stimulus] on myself and my family and loss of [something else] were. The disruption to my [life aspect] was also an important [something]. I had some [synonym of dirt] to believe that my [something] would not suffer a drastic [something] even though I experienced a drop in my [something else]. So it is with this recent [ouchie]. If the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for any one considering [general life change]."

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More examples can be found here.

Gratitude Memetics (Part II)

In the previous post I offered an example of what I've come to think of as 'gratitude memetics'. I realise that although I have quite a clear idea of what that means to me, I haven't shared that.

I define 'gratitude memetics' as the study of memes involving the memorial cultural transmission of a specific form of gratitude; i.e. the gratitude of type G that a person owes another is linked to similar gratitude that that person owes yet another. This is seen in trivial form when people play 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon', with the gratitude being shallow and implicit, and seen in less trivial and more consequential form in academic citations and the tracing of academic pedigree (as in the previous post).

It's possible to see this in clan or feudal obligations where one family lineage is obligated to another or owes fealty to another. This survives even in non-feudal societies when one feels obliged to repay the debts (social, financial or otherwise) that a family member may have incurred towards a close mutual acquaintance.

What forms does this take, in terms of formal structures, arrangements and descriptions? Something to spend the weekend thinking about.

FaceBookMeme

I like how three four-letter words can come together in such intimidating synergy. Face. Book. Meme.

It might seem trivial to you, but these three words represent three of the most powerful concepts known to the ancients. I've written about face before, as in the Greek prosopon; books I've written about before, and the Greek biblion more or less carries the kind of connotations we want. And 'meme', a conflation first coined by the egregious Dawkins from the Greek mimesis ('presentation', 'representation' or 'stage-acting') and mneme ('memory'), is a modernised variant of the mind-viruses that swept the world after the coming of the Classical Greek era. (Note: Dawkins denies that he'd ever heard of mneme when he came up with meme. Philistine.)

But enough with the etymology already. Here's a FaceBookMeme:

Rules:

1. Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
2. Turn to page 57.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post your sentence in a comment here as well, including the title of book and author.
5. Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your wall (or on your blog).

That's it!

Here's mine:

"After 6 d4 b5 7 Bb3 d5 8 dxe5 Be6 the most fashionable move is 9 Nbd2 (columns 43-45), immediately contesting the strong Black knight on e4." Modern Chess Openings (6th Ed), Nick de Firmian.

Memories

After I propagated this meme, I realised that I had learned many things. It's amazing how many different people I've come to know, how many different ways I tried to teach and how I succeeded (and failed). I am forever indebted to my students for allowing me to teach them, thus teaching me a lot about myself and about the true business of life. I am sorry to any of them to whom I was a bad teacher who gave nothing and/or took too much. I am no longer a teacher at the present time, occupationally speaking. I hope one day to be a teacher again, and to be a much better one too.

If anyone wants to add to the pile, both good and bad, I would be very grateful. These memories are all precious to me, and reading what you remember helps me recall those moments won at great price and often too easily lost for no gain.

In Meme-oriam

Here's a meme that's propagated from two pearls of great price...

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don’t speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want — good or bad. When you’re finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.

Heh.

It's As Easy As...

This is called the 123 meme.

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

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Very well.

I'm still reading Ink by Hal Duncan.

"Russia fell to the Futurists because in Stalin's hands in had become Futurist; it only needed his death to mark the finality of the transformation, close the chapter, turn the page."

That's at least three sentences, I think. Actually, four. And all very ironic to me.

And I'm tagging people I know read enough to do this: Wolfberry, RGT, Hiero, ARGH, and KC.

Twenty-Three

Musical leanings occasionally produce sufficient pressure for one to sit up, look around surreptitiously, and do a memetic exercise (or should that be psychomimetic, haha!) based on '23 things about yourself'. Random stuff follows; beware!

1. I'm a midnight child. The dark has never held fear for me, and if you examine the 'font colour' tags you will see my favourite colour a lot on this blog.


2. I teach biblical studies. My youngest student ever was aged 4 and my oldest, about 55.


3. The cello is my favourite musical instrument; it seldom gets out of hand, and it takes a bow easily and without a fuss. It is mellow, sometimes yellow, and quite a fellow. Lovely voice, beautifully melancholic.


4. I belong to several professional organisations, all with the acronym ACS. Some are linked here. I mention this because those are my mother's initials as well.


5. I have never dated someone of the argent, bezants vert persuasion before.


6. My favourite prophet is Jeremiah, he who was imprisoned in a cistern for his pains.


7. I have a great fondness for rough-cut potato chips, or crisps even, with bits of skin on.


8. I have been to Uzbekistan; Tashkent, to be specific.


9. I found out I could read Catalan when I visited Andorra.


10. One of my favourite words is 'baryon'; it sounds somehow Germanic, Hebraic and Hellenic all at once.


11. Over the years, I have specialised in teaching communication engineering and computer science.


12. My blood type is O, which means I am not as biologically specialised as some people I know.


13. I love animals who can be independent while living within pack or clan structures. Cats, wolves, for example.


14. I have two nieces. It is tempting to call them 'niece' and 'niecer'. Except that I once worked in an organisation called NIECER.


15. Science has always been one of my favourite subjects. I was just never any good at it in school. Used to get 20s and 30s when the maximum score was 100.


16. I'm a carnivore by nature. I can eat huge amounts of lamb, mutton, beef, venison, and pork, and other meats as well.


17. My favourite poet has a surname that is ten letters long.


18. If I hadn't been a teacher, I would have been a lawyer. Some say a rabbi. Ha.


19. I have a catalogue of all my books. It informs me that I have 6803 books on the shelves at the moment.


20. My first science fiction novel was Arthur C Clarke's Islands in the Sky.


21. I once consumed a Big Mac™, a large fries and a Coke™ in forty-seven seconds. Burp.


22. I was born in a former swamp, my flat is in a former swamp, and I am often swamped.


23. The first poem I ever memorised was William Blake's Tyger.

Why 23 things? I don't know. But here is a link which might be of interest. Enjoy!

The Icelandic Dairy Meme Deploys...

Here are my ten top flavours, in no particular order. I am going to be descriptive rather than prescriptive; that is, I will describe the flavours rather than name them (in case I open myself to intellectual property lawsuits and such).

1. True Chocolate: Dark chocolate ice cream with broken bits of 85% cacao dark chocolate bars, swirled with chocolate fudge. You know who you are, my darling. And after a serving, I forget who I am.

2. Burnt Vanilla: Madagascar vanilla pods have been sacrificed to give this amber-glazed ice-cream the true fragrance of excellence. Through it all runs the slightly burnt and fleeting aftertaste of caramel – or is that butterscotch?

3. Pineapple Tart: I remember my grandmother making pineapple jam around the Lunar New Year season. I would help her stir the brown paste, redolent with sweet odour and heavily textured. And then we would put a spoonful of it on little tart bases. Now you can have it all, broken up and mixed with a plain vanilla base. Where? When? The secret is known to a few.

4. Plutonium Doom: Blue curaçao twirls brittle flame through something which would have been yellow-brown pistachio gelato in another universe. Silver streaks of glazed lightning, sweet and slightly lemony, strike through what looks like a Time Vortex. You can almost hear the Doctor Who theme song.

5. Dark Cherry: If this cold equivalent of a Black Forest mousse cake were a lady, she'd be tall and dark with magenta eyes. In the bitterness, the taste of kirsch and the memories of distant sweetness hidden in an epic romance.

6. Rum & Raisin: You can taste Jamaica here; the proper R&R is the alluring colour of a summer beach, studded with soft raisins, fruit pickled in rum. And the rum has begun to escape into the velvet softness of vanilla...

7. Chendol: There's only one place here where it's done right. Frozen coconut milk writhes in grinning ecstasy with soft green tendrils of something chewy. The light touch of deep and seductive brown sugar (gula melaka) syrup sets a slow fire going. The pale brown stuff melts unevenly in your mouth, different each time.

8. Something Caffeinated: Many places serve a coffee gelato. The one I have in mind was so dark I thought it was chocolate at first; it turned out to be dark-roasted Costa Rican beans, their essence fused and folded through four-dimensional space in a matrix of slightly milky memories.

9. Gianduja: This too is chocolate, but it couldn't be more different from the rest. The difference is in what has been blended into it. Half of that is hazelnut paste, warm to the tongue and with the possibility of crunch; the other half is almond, sinister in its proclivities but willing to chat.

10. Zabaglione: Yes, this is the classical sabayon; cream, the yellowness of egg-yolks, simmered Marsala wine and a thin honey glaze. Every tongueful tingles, and who would be so crass as to take it in mouthfuls?

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There! And I shall tag the following people: the Dancer (well, any other dancers are welcome too), Aristoitle (and you might as well share it with your two good co-bloggers), and Melancholy (who has much free time on her hands – err, legs).

The Icelandic Dairy Meme

It isn't the first time I've dreamt of The Icelandic Dairy Foundry. As the Flyhalf said, I do love my ice-cream quite a bit. I love some flavours a lot more than others though. I remember eating my way through a two-litre tub of plain French Vanilla ice-cream in my youth; to date, I think the nearest equivalent would be a single tub of Ben & Jerry's New York Fudge Chunk (or something like that, with a lot of chocolate in it).

I love Pineapple Tart ice-cream from Island Creamery. And it was while thinking of it that I realised how similar 'Island Creamery' is to 'Icelandic Dairy Foundry'. The difference, I suppose, is that the latter sounds... forged.

I am tempted to make a list of my fifty favourite flavours, both real and imagined. I wonder what people would say about it. But that seems a bit too long for a meme. Maybe I should just list ten flavours and then tag three other people, or something like that.

Meme P3

Once in a while, you come across an old meme which has mutated into something quite different. And so, on Ratri's blog (name pseudonymised for her protection), I came across this and succumbed.

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IF YOUR LIFE WERE A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here's how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, iPaq etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you’re cool.

Heh. And here is the story of my life...

01 - OPENING CREDITS: Dan Nicholson – Shipyard: Rough Repairs
02 - WAKING UP: Traditional/The King's Singers – Watching The White Wheat
03 - FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL: Checkfield – Carribean Cooler
04 - FALLING IN LOVE: St Etienne – Lose That Girl
05 - FIGHT SONG: Mozart – Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
06 - BREAKING UP: David Newman – Serenity: Into The River
07 - PROM: Howard Blake/Aled Jones – Snowman: Walking In The Air
08 - LIFE: Jared Ellsworth – Ultima V Lazarus: Love (Empath Abbey Theme)
09 - MENTAL BREAKDOWN: Britten: Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge: (4) Romance
10 - DRIVING: The Idea Of North – Shed a Little Light/The Gulf War Song
11 - FLASHBACK: ABBA/RPO – SOS (Instrumental)
12 - WEDDING: Orff/LSO – Carmina Burana: Fortunae Plango Vulnera
13 - BIRTH OF CHILD: Ravel – Bolero
14 - FINAL BATTLE: Prokofiev – Romeo & Juliet: Romeo Resolves to Avenge Mercutio's Death
15 - DEATH SCENE: Enya – Amarantine: Someone Said Goodbye
16 - FUNERAL SONG: Puccini/Amici Forever – Nessun Dorma
17 - END CREDITS: Wynton Marsalis – The Midnight Blues: Glad To Be Unhappy

That was fun, and in some places, quite unnerving! Thanks be to Ratri, who took away a few hours of my night...

Memetic Breadth

My friend the Projectilist recently commented that a top-class education results in three main things:

1. Networking
2. Public service
3. Memetic breadth

It might be a simplistic view, superficially speaking, but on close inspection of many top high schools, these are indeed the three 'gifts of the Magi' which lesser schools do not provide.

The reasons are clear. Top schools are often the home of top-class alumni with networks of their own and a higher likelihood of their offspring entering the school and renewing or maintaining old ties. The professionals, politicians and administrators of a nation tend to be drawn from these same schools, so public service (and eventually, the ideas that drive the nation) will also be a marker as to the reputation of a school. Finally, in an environment where people are expected to be different and do things differently, memetic proliferation becomes the rule rather than the exception.

And true to form, I have been hit by one such meme, from the Dancer. I am supposed to describe five material desires (with some chance of actually being fulfilled) and then tag five people. So here goes...

1. I want a library. Six rooms with aged teak shelves, indirect lighting, and 24-hour climate control, at least 4 km of shelf space (and at least 15" deep) and enough floor space to have writing desks and workstations in each room. The walls are panelled with oak, engraved with cryptic little details from 'The Secret History'. Glass panes are made from bulletproof, UV-filtering material, faceted in the traditional English style.

2. Speaking of which, my existing notebook – the PowerBook G4 known as 'Nemo' – has now entered its fourth year of sterling service. I would love to have an upgrade, one of those eight thousand dollar machines, but with a one-piece titanium shell randomly electro-oxidised to a subtly iridescent gleam. Hopefully, this one will have key markings which don't succumb to the remorseless creeping acidity of my fingers.

3. I already have a complete Jack Vance – a lovely integrated edition. What I would like is a complete James Branch Cabell as well, also in an integrated edition. Most people don't know about Cabell; Michael Swanwick (see item 2) has something to say here.

4. I want a blue-light laser pointer. Unfortunately, such items are banned in Singapore. A fun runner-up in this slot would be a bunch of Acrobots instead... In fact, ThinkGeek.Com is one of the most amazing sites for making me think of stuff I would love to have.

5. I want a lifetime's supply of aromatic high-cacao dark chocolate. I'll settle for smaller quantities, though. Although I am certain that Godiva doesn't make the best ever chocolates, they do make very good assortments. Here is one place to begin with if you intend to indulge me.

And now to tag a few people:

• AnonymousNoises
• KenT
• Wolfberry
• Lavender's Blue
• La Femme Blanche

There you are. You know who you are even if other people don't. Enjoy!

Parity

I've always thought of myself as a New York City kind of person. A latent Manhattanite, if you like. And I know I can live in London and I don't mind retiring to Melbourne or Edinburgh or Cambridge. But then she-of-the-eyes did this memetic thing and I had to do it too for fun and the results are...

What City Should You Live In?
	You should live in Paris. The City of Lights will appeal to your appreciation of beauty and romance. You are a lover and a poet by nature, and Paris's sensitive charms will be a perfect match for yours.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

I guess this means primus intra Paris. Yes, well that was a bad pun, I know. But it reflects (badly) my state of mind.

Bookmeme

Oh dear, Herr Ofannt has launched a very tempting bookmeme. I have no choice but to join in. I think a set of 20 questions is a bit too much, so... what are the ten sources of these last lines of (some of my favourite) books? Answers are below, in hard-to-see text.

1. "Do you think I paid any attention to what you said?"

2. "And they walked away, together through the hole in the wall, back into the darkness, leaving nothing behind them; not even the doorway."

3. "For this is where my story ends."

4. "...may your lives be blessed by the beauty that has touched mine. Farewell."

5. "The the parrot, startled perhaps by the clamour of the passing train, flew up into the rafters of the station roof, where, in flawless mockery of the voice of a woman whom none of them would ever meet or see again, it began, very sweetly, to sing."

6. "The two guns roared out almost simultaneously. Almost."

7. "Poor Eric came home to see his brother, only to find (Zap! Pow! Dams burst! Bombs go off! Wasps fry: ttssss!) he's got a sister."

8. "We may walk it ourselves, in time, in chance, in hope. Who knows?"

9. "Then he saw the sister of Gregory, the girl with the gold-red hair, cutting lilac before breakfast, with the great unconscious gravity of a girl."

10. "...this side the grave, I will live as becomes the man whom she loves; and, for the other side, I must pray a dreamless sleep."
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Answers: Yes, I did say there'd be answers. I even put them up for a while. But I decided I wanted to say more about these books later on... Heh.

Visual DNA (Second Trial)

Here is one way to decode the memetic code. I suspect that this is how a company develops a semiotic database which it can then sell to advertising agencies interested in subliminal targeting.

Read my VisualDNA™     Get your own VisualDNA™

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Ah well, you have to appreciate grand endeavours.