Conversation after listening to our heartbeats

This is the conversation I had with Frederique after she asked to listen to my heartbeat (boom-boom) and I listened to hers:

Fred: What does it mean?
Me: It means my heart is busy pumping blood all over my body. It means I'm alive and so are you.
Fred: What happens when you get this people again?
Me: Which people?
Fred: This people (she points to herself)
Me: Another person just like you?
Fred: Yes.
Me: That never happens. You are unique. There is only one little girl like you in the whole wide world. Just one Frederique.
Fred: (sadly) Oh, pleease.

Which reminds me when I was a kid I used to lie in bed at night, looking up at the underneath of the top bunk, picturing how big the world was, how many millions of people lived in it, and how somewhere there must be another girl just like me - another actual me - only living a completely different life. Which in turn reminds me of the incandescent The Double Life of Veronique. It's a powerful dream. On the one hand uniqueness and individuality is something we are taught to value, but the idea of a double, of multiplying ourselves, a perfect self/other, a living mirror companion is nevertheless passionately alluring.

New Book!

Hey! Look!
It's in stores officially as of next week I believe.

I love the cover. The green and red are magical together. The green is actually the best green I've ever seen. The blue's pretty good too. I've seen a few of these Chomps and I have to say, without bias of course, that I like MINE the best!!
Cover is by Anna Walker, who I must remember to kidnap sometime and have her be my friend (because friendship under duress is the best kind, then they can never leave you). Look at her website. I want to be an Anna Walker picture, preferably a little bird.

Teaching

Lili reminded me about this piece of video.I found it a while ago (every now and again I search for poetry on You Tube) and made Martin and Zoe - the future teachers in my life - watch it. Now I'm making you watch it too. But you should. It's really really worth it.

Museum of Dust: Celeste Olalquiaga

Museum of Dust: Celeste Olalquiaga
The Museum of Dust has been quiet for a while, but something stirs within. I had almost given up hope of a reawakening, but just enough hope remained that after reading Ampersand Duck's recent Wunderkammer post on Sarsaparilla I had a poke in there for old time's sake.

It's a fabulous blog to stroll around, a beautiful cyberfiction, that will lead you away and back again. There's a museum of dust flickr group too. It's one of those online things that baffles slightly, mysterious and yet utterly, curiously fascinating.

Two Thoughts on Undine's Magic

1.
Sometimes I think we are part magic, that what animates us is a kind of magic, that our psyches, our selves, points towards a kind of alchemy, both physical and ethereal in nature. What makes us who we are? What mysterious concoction of environment and genetics? What binds this stuff together? I think that's the magic in Undine really, the stuff that binds together the physical world and the world of ideas, where ideas act even more directly on the physical world. And not just ideas but our ever mysterious, ever important emotions. Perhaps all this signifies a neglect in my scientific education, but perhaps I chose on some level to neglect some aspects of physical science, in order to pursue my own wild half-baked theories about the universe.

2.
I read in the paper (the Hobart Mercury in fact, so it must be true) that the current belief is that there was not in fact a big bang in which the universe, but that our universe is actually born from the remnants of an ancient universe. I read that and thought, 'Oh, so that's where Undine's magic comes from.'

Poetry

Occasionally I like to put poetry on here, just for edification purposes - everyone needs to be extended now and then. Anyway, I was going to put The Waste Land here, by T.S. Eliot, but really who's got time for that? This version's so much better.

Waste Land Limerick

I

In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me--
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

II

She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions--
Bad as Albert and Lil--what a pair!

III

The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep--
A typist is laid,
A record is played--
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.

IV

A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business--the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.

V

No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.

-- Wendy Cope

Scissored and stickered from here

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Oh it's hard coming up with those post headings sometimes.

Anyway, I'm going to fiddle around with the template over the next few days. I do like this one, because it reminds me of being in a nice old lady's wallpapered living room, with elevenses on a tiered plate and cups of tea in china cups with pictures of roses on it. But sometimes I find the very long narrow posts hard to read. And the formatting goes funny and photos sometimes look a bit odd.

So I am looking to go back to the cleaner look over Eglantine's early days. Don't be alarmed if everything seems to swing about for a while as I play with it. We will resume normal programming soon. Let's hope I don't accidently delete the whole thing.

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Edited to add:
Okay, I think this is it. I can no long be bothered fiddle-faffing around.