The Pensive Penguin

I have yet to meet the piece of art (keep in mind my firmly held, yet easily contested opinion that life itself is art (we are all involuntarily artists in the medium of life) and that the world around us is an art object of our own creation) the central themes of which did not focus on the subjects of aesthetics and time.  Prime examples of which… Shakespeare’s immortal lover (which sonnet was that again?), Joyce’s ‘eternity sermon’ in Portrait, does anyone care to hear the list continued? 

My question is this, with mathematical advances what they are (i.e. relativity, quantum physics, string theory, etc.) time has become the more discussable of the two enigmas. (Don’t worry the question is forming still) Aesthetics still holds strong as a major theme in art–it is art–but Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day exists, in which aesthetics (I’m admittedly only halfway though the behemoth) plays only the most minor of roles, while time (the stopping, travelling through, defeat, and manipulation of) is the major theme.  Has time joined aesthetics in holding the dual role in artistic expression of both subject and object?

Does my miniature almost pre-thesis make any sense?  I’m not sure I’ve fully decided what I’m trying to say here.

Well, I’m disappointed at the lack of anything about Theoretical Physics or wheelchairs, but this did prove to be a mildly amusing, very angry rant about people misusing words.  I think I must have been in a bad mood… 

During the current remodel of a school building, there is a temporary wall which seperates the area in which non-construction workers should be from the area which is being remodeled.  The number of linguistically impaired people calling it a “fake” wall finally got to me today.  The next person who I hear saying “fake wall” will be the recipient of a very sincere invitation to try walking through it.  The same goes for the people who circulate the “fake” photos of sharks swimming just beneath the surface of the water next to an unsuspecting surfer or a low-flying helicopter.  The photos aren’t at all what bother me; each of those photos almost made me laugh the first ten thousand times I saw them.  What bothers me is that each of these photos comes attached to an email with a string of about thirty previous recipients and senders each of which has found it necessary to not only send the picture on another lap around cyberspace, but to also add their own rendition of the sentence “This is probably fake, but funny nonetheless.”  The pictures are not fake!!! They are all very much real, it is just the situation they are depicting that is fake.  When you watch a movie, the characters are being played by real people, which are recorded on real film and are real interpretations of fake people.

I know someone who very frequently reminds me that there is such a thing as male PMS.  Usually I laugh and let it go without asking him how many times a day he pulls that line out.  Maybe he has a point.

Okay, so it turns out to have been my own fault.  In a well-intentioned attempt to create a backup of my old posts, I managed to change something that shouldn’t have been changed, or moved something that should have stayed put , or stuck my finger someplace it had no business being.  Whatever I did, I figured out how to undo it (how many months later?) and my digital essence has made its triumphant return to the Wicked World of Wonderment (an infinitely better lengthening of the abbreviation if you ask me) none the different than when it left, but none the worse for wear (although my keyboard now tends to not like the letter ‘r’ for some reason, so ignore any mysterious omissions of that little bugger).  What baffles me is how easy wordpress is to use, and how completely inept I am at using it…

Up next: Wordpress tells me I have a draft saved of a post titled “Reality Imagination and Stephen Hawking”  It sounds like fun, I might try making sense of it and post it for all five of the people likely to look.

Bonus Content: Phrase heard on the radio today, “fother mucker”

Chefs are known for having egos larger than the turkey Scrooge had delivered to Bob Cratchet’s house on Christmas morning, this is no secret.  Chefs on television are known to be the worst of the bunch.  The Food Network has once again produced its annual “All Star Thanksgiving” special (or has dusted off last years edition, I can’t really tell) and it comes as no surprise to see many of the Network’s stars present with the obvious exclusion of Bobby Flay.  Ancho chili cloud or not, they still managed to not make it five minutes into the show without the first of what will probably prove to be several passive-aggressive head-butts. (Which I’ll gladly miss while typing this.)

Rachael Ray and Tyler Florence are standing behind the kitchen set’s island with a long loaf of french bread, already partially sliced and surrounded by the usual suspects for bruscetta.  As though it were a spur of the moment idea, Rachael looked around the room and pronounced that if they were all going to be there all day cooking, they would need some snacks, so “lets make some bruscetta.” To which Tyler Florence quickly replied “Yes, lets make some bruscetta.”

Now, on your monitor, that looks very redundant, and that a seasoned television personality the likes of Tyler Florence would know better than to make such a simple mistake.  On the contrary, my friend, you see, Rachael pronounced bruscetta with a soft “c” sound (brushetta) and Tyler jumped in with a “c” sound harder than steel (brusketta).  Not a word on the subject aside from each needing to voice their own pronunciation, but whether you speak Italian, or favor localized dialects, it was quite a giggle-enducing moment for a language-and-food nerd such as myself.