Re: The Hammer & The Feather

From: Androcles (dummy_at_dummy.net)
Date: 01/19/05 

Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 18:30:07 GMT

"Seymour Grass" <daddio45@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:355u43F4jo2mtU1@individual.net...
>
> "Androcles" <dummy@dummy.net> wrote in message
> news:koiHd.173810$Z7.96205@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>>> Boring uncreative idiot troll.
>>
>>
>> LOL! He's a fucking sight less boring, a whole lot more creative and
>> far less miserable than you, jealous ***!
>>
>> Androcles.
>
> Roar, lion, roar!

Newton is my lion, bubba, and yes, he can roar.
Androcles.

> --
>
> From: "Seymour Grass" <daddio45@yahoo.com>
> Subject: {Story} House of the Rising Ophiuchus {1,208}
> Date: Sunday, January 09, 2005 3:16 AM
>
> --
> It was a whale of thing to try and keep unfolded and spread out in the
> mind, a whole sky full of stars all at once, and much as I'd tried, I
> couldn't hold the entire view of it, so I had to go to the Gypsy
> Woman--what I've been calling her anyway, even if she is mainly Cajun
> French, with maybe a dash of Afro-Cuban and a pinch or two of Creole
> sprinkled in for some real spicy good gumbo; and my, what a dish with
> that curly black hair, those sparkling eyes and big gold rings--some
> fine kind of gris-gris come to Chicago here from some little town down
> on the bayou around Baton Rouge.
>
> I found this doll, name of "Mirabelle" working out of a little
> boutique up on Wells street a few blocks south of the Lincoln Park
> hotel. She has that whole Zydeco Zodiac thing down pat and has been
> making her living by drawing up charts of people's horoscopes in her
> parlor there, where she also does some dealing in potions and herbs,
> Voodoo dolls and I don't doubt but that she's got a brisk
> under-the-counter trade in all kind of hoodoo, if maybe you got you a
> two-dollar bill as the fixings for some of that *John, the Conqueroo*
> to be mixing for a mojo of red, green or blue, whether its a piece of
> tail, piece of eight, or peace of mind you might kind of crave, could
> be she'd have some of that down in the dark somewhere under there,
> too.
>
> But as to the reason I needed to see her, well, if you knew the name
> of the newspaper I work for, then you'd know they aren't fussy when it
> comes to the hire of a science editor like me who still has something
> to learn about a difference between Astronomy and Astrology. Even so,
> it wasn't hard to bluff my way into the position when the guy who held
> the desk before me got too drunk to keep sitting up behind it. I
> mean, I was available, being just one desk over which pretty much
> eminently qualified me above all other comers. But as to a good solid
> background in science to justify moving my stuff over to Joe's old
> desk? Well, I did have a couple years of night courses at
> Northwestern under my belt, including one in General Physics for Math
> Dummies (that's the actual title) and another called, "Star Gazing for
> Amateur Astronomers."
>
> So, that being pretty good for government (or journalism) work, I got
> the Science desk. It's meant a minor boost in pay to move up from
> being a lowly police beat reporter, to a full fledged editor, but
> since I'm the only reporter working under me, the only real change is
> the desk, and yes, the slight increase in pay--about fifty bucks a
> month. Of course, I'm rubbing shoulders with a lot of real scientists
> all the time, got a rolodex full of their office numbers, plus the
> phone numbers of some of their girlfriends in case they weren't in
> when I tried to get them--I don't really have too many of those, but a
> few, from the two or three professors I've managed to get cozy with
> over cocktails. And come to think, it was by way of Dr. Reuben
> Schlitzquirt's main squeeze, Meredith Swanson that I got the lead on
> this Cajun Astrologer dame--and who else but her, Meredith Swanson, I
> mean? Certainly you don't suppose Schlitzquirt himself, a well-tenured
> full professor of nuclear particle physics, that such as he would know
> anything about tea-leaves, the little known 13th House of Ophiuchus,
> and High John the Conqueroo, do you? No, I suppose you most earnestly
> do not--I'll give you that much anyway.
>
> Face it, this recent Tsunami disaster has caught the whole world of
> science with its pants down, and it's really been tough knowing where
> to turn to get down on it from the science angle of the thing. As
> science editor, it's not my job to be getting the tear-jerker angle on
> all the misery, the flotsam-jetsam of wrecked lives and villages, so
> tragic as all that is, if not to me personally--then not. The
> heart-rending stories of obliteration, the vaporization of whole
> Islamic terror training camps--I'm not paid to get all wet and gooey
> over that. No, it's the natural causes for such an event that a
> science editor/reporter is after--not the divine, or 'spiritual', the
> emotional, if you will.
>
> So, anyway, one day, I got a call from Dr. Sigurd Nielsen over there
> in the Geology department at the University of Chicago, and he reports
> to me that he's got this guy who's been bugging him almost daily at
> his office with a bunch of calculations he's made which according to
> his claims, are showing that this is only the beginning of a whole lot
> more of a big she-bang going on, geophysically and astronomically, in
> terms of further trouble on the way. The guy had been given the gate
> over at the Physics department, which is why he came over to Geology
> where the professors are a just little easier going--hale, hearty
> outdoor types that they are. So, Nielson says to me on the phone that
> day, "He may be just another kook with a crank theory, but unlike most
> of that sort, as he presents himself, his face isn't jumping around
> from all kind of tics, he isn't sitting there with his hands vibrating
> in his pockets, eyes bugged, and breathing loud; he's better groomed
> than most of my students, and there seems to be a certain logic in
> what he says."
>
> I'm going, "Oh, yeah?"
>
> "Well, put it this way," says Nielsen, "I'm not finding any holes in
> what he says."
>
> "Nothing like those big black hugely radiating X-class sunspots we've
> been seeing of late?"
>
> "No, nothing like that, but those are part of his considerations."
>
> "So why do you send him to me?" I mean, I had to ask him: "Why aren't
> you rocketing his theory off to the professional journals?"
>
> His answer? "It's too risky. We're not going to stake our own
> scholarly reputations on some anonymous layman's calculations, which
> could be screwier than a green-tailed bacterial flagellum--know what I
> mean?"
>
> Well no, I didn't but I said, "You bet I do!"
>
> "You got it," said he.
>
> "Yeah," I said. "Because if somebody's theory doesn't have the
> imprimatur of that Ph.D. stamped on it, then it might as well be
> somebody's raggedy old Green Arrow comic book, right?"
>
> He said, "Well . . ."
>
> I said, "Sure, because you got to have that brand recognition, else
> who will buy it? And if it doesn't come from consecrated hands in the
> priesthood of the black square hat and tassel, forget you, right?"
>
> After some ponderous silence, I got this through the horn: "Look here,
> McCoy, I'm saying that there may well be something to the stuff this
> guy's got, and you're the one who is in a position to bring it to the
> attention of the scientific community, by reporting it as news to the
> public. I believe the man may have something. I'm doing all I can,
> here." He hung up.
>
> Imagine that. He actually hung up on me, the Science Editor for a
> major cosmopolitan newspaper? Yes, he did. So then, anyway, next
> thing I knew, the morning following, my intercom is dinging me with
> the jingle bells (they've always got that on there around the
> Holidays--and it's like, some people never get around to taking that
> Christmas tree down); it's the receptionist telling me there's some
> guy named Grassman here with a letter of introduction from U.C.
> wanting to see me on a very urgent matter. Fine. Urgency is my main
> métier. So, what do I do? I tell her to send him right in.
>
>
> From: "Seymour Grass" <daddio45@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Do You Mind If I Smoke?
> Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 2:37 PM
> --
> Graszmann came in and we talked; he had just a few things to say
> concerning this recent flooding in California, the Sumatra
> tsunami--and, okay, then he mentioned something about "Sunspots."
>
> When he saw me looking at him kind of funny, he started squinting his
> eyes down real narrow-like; so I put on my best smile and said, "Well,
> sunspots--which ones exactly?" I hadn't known that we'd been having
> any notable outbreaks of those just of late, so I mentioned that as I
> looked down to sort through some copy on my desk. Hearing nothing
> further from him, I glanced up and, oh my, did this guy have a
> look--it was halfway intelligent, or so it might have seemed, I mean
> if the look that makes you look like an idiot, can by contrast make
> the other guy look smart, then yeah, he looked intelligent, but since
> he wasn't answering my question, I asked him again, "What?" And
> that's when he asked me if he could smoke.
>
> Shocked by the very suggestion, my editorial assistant who happened to
> be coming through the door, turned to look down on him like he was one
> of those poisonous little green tree toads of the Amazon jungle; she
> informed him that he most certainly could not smoke; that if he even
> so much as tried it, he would be tasered by the nearest security
> guard, put in plastic wrist and ankle restraints, and be delivered
> down to the Chicago Police Department rolled up in a drab green piano
> mover's quilt.
>
> Whoa. Look out. I watched as this guy rose slowly out of his
> chair--and you know how the Frankenstein monster looks when he's going
> after somebody? Well, if a look could go thudding across the room on
> ten pound boots with its arms stiffly outstretched, that's how the ice
> green glare in Mr. Seymour Graszman's eyes went reaching across to
> throttle the throat of poor Ms. Melba Tostquist, right there where she
> stood--it was such a look! From her shaking hands, she dropped that
> copy to my desk and backed out of the office never taking her eyes off
> that man for an instant.
>
> I had to grab my hat and coat so we could go out and find some other
> place to talk, off the premises . . .
>
> From: "Seymour Grass" <daddio45@yahoo.com>
> Subject: The Hammer & The Feather
> Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 3:22 AM
>
> I was watching the floor numbers flash in descending order when to my
> dismay I felt a jab to the ribs. I turned to see Graszman there at my
> right beaming an aggressive looking grin that caused me to take a step
> beyond range of any more of that! "Tell me, McCoy," he said, closing
> the distance between us all the more, "what do you think would happen
> if in a few seconds from now, the cable on this thing were to snap?"
>
> I braced against my body's downward momentum as the car had abruptly
> begun slowing to a stop at the 12th floor. We stepped back to admit an
> elderly woman; the spot on my ribs was yet throbbing from that
> unwelcome familiarity of his and he was still at me, still talking:
>
> "I'm talking about your feet?" He was pointing toward my shoes. "Would
> they remain in contact with the floor as we went down, or not?"
>
> I thought it rather an inopportune moment for such a discussion,
> considering especially that we now had company, and I said so, but
> soon felt reason to regret it as there appeared something in the
> stance he was taking, even so slight as he was by comparison to my
> height of 6'1", and weight of 195; a bearing he had that was oddly
> intimidating for someone who from the look of it would hardly turn the
> scale past 150, nor stand any higher than 5'10" in those high-heeled
> cowboy boots of his.
>
> "I don't know," I said, lowering my voice for his ears alone. "My
> guess is that we'd soon drift upward toward the ceiling and stay there
> until the car came down on that spring at the bottom of the shaft." I
> shrugged at the sardonical look he was now giving me: "Well, that's my
> guess--for what it's worth."
>
> At the 9th floor, two twenty-somethings of the female flavor had
> boarded; their laughter not being entirely left echoing behind in the
> corridor as the doors slid to a close. "Well, you ought to know better
> than that, McCoy," he was saying. "I thought you were the science
> editor for this . . ." he raised a hand to indicate the surroundings,
> ". . . glorified producer of bird cage liner and fish wrap."
>
> To the somewhat distraught expressions of insulted esteem on the other
> faces about us, I managed a smile of apology for the character of my
> company. "Of course I'm the science editor, Graszamn. What of it?"
>
> "Then you ought to know that since our bodies inside this car would
> not be falling, like the car itself, against any resistance of air,
> our rate of acceleration would be the same as for the car."
>
> Now that he was mentioning it, I did have a glimmer of recollection,
> having to do with Galileo, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, some feathers
> and a cannonball.
>
> The elevator had gone past the Mezzanine and was slowing to a stop at
> "L" for "Lobby". Just as the doors were opening, Graszman was still
> going on: "I suppose you must recall that they proved it on the Moon."
>
> We were going across toward the expanse of doors leading out of the
> building. "I'm sorry," I said. "Proved what?"
>
> "Holy Christly Night!" He stared in disgust, as he went out ahead of
> me into the cold of what was in the proximity of five below zero. For
> a time, after descending the stair, we strode along huffing our vapors
> in silence. He bore on his head a tweed stingy-brim cap, and about the
> neck, a bright red woolen bulky-knit muffler tucked into a Navy
> surplus "P-coat". As we were nearing the Purple Angus, perhaps the
> nearest place with a cocktail lounge where smoking was permitted, I
> suggested we cross at the coming corner and get on over there.
>
> At a table near the window looking out on Randolf Street, we sat in
> the Mahogany Lounge of the Purple Angus over two steaming mugs of
> coffee, waiting for the Reuben sandwich for him, a pastrami with Swiss
> cheese on rye for me. As we talked for those first few minutes, I
> brought up the fact that according to what I'd heard from Dr. Nielsen,
> he, Graszman was in no position to talk when it came to scientific
> credentials, and so who was he to sit there in judgment of me? I
> further suggested he keep in mind that nobody in the Physics
> department over there had as yet set the dogs on me. Well, that
> humbled him well enough and as he began to show some sign of
> contrition, I reminded him that I was about his only chance to be
> heard. Of course, he knew this to be true, and apologized for treating
> another guy just as he hated to be treated himself. I was finally
> starting to like him a little, so I took a chance: I swore him to
> secrecy and told him of the extent of my own "science education".
>
> Surprisingly, that seemed greatly to please him, he had a good laugh
> on the thought of it and then surprised me to confess that he'd pulled
> a like scam once when he got his first job teaching for an accredited
> music school in Oak Park, explaining that when he'd first applied, he
> could barely read music, which was a problem since five or six of his
> students were advanced far beyond him; even so, he'd managed to keep
> them dazzled by showing them lots of fancy *** Dale and Chuck Berry
> riffs, while he took the time to cram like crazy to catch up to their
> places in the books.
>
> By the time our sandwiches had arrived, we were happy to raise a
> toast, my pastrami and cheese to his Reuben, upon my pronouncement
> that there was no hurdle a man could not surmount in this world if he
> had the acting skills to pull it off, and a will to do the catch-up
> work to make it look good, as ever it could.
>
> A little later, after our cups had been refilled, the conversation had
> turned once again to that scary business on the elevator and I was
> saying that now as we were on the subject, I did recall how Apollo 15
> had proved Galileo's theory true, what with the whole thing on film,
> the feather and the hammer falling together only to hit the dust at
> the same time.
>
> Then he said an odd thing: "But, you see McCoy, scientists who can
> play only by the book and not at all by ear, they just don't hear in
> the fall of that feather and the hammer, what silent awesome melody is
> being played to the mind."
>
> I had to shake my head. "Could you try to be just a little more
> obscure, arcane and full of metaphorically dangling conversation,
> there Seymour?"
>
> He took a big bite from the Reuben, and some of the sauerkraut got
> out.
>
> I was waiting: "Help me out a little, here."
>
> After a slug of coffee, he said, "You could go to the Moon, you could
> build yourself a Leaning Tower of Pisa up there, you could drop from
> the top of it, at the same time, a grand piano and a hair from the
> head of--okay, Veronica Lake, you should be so lucky as to find one of
> her hair-brushes on Ebay?"
>
> I don't know what I'm hearing but I say, "Alright."
>
> "You drop that platinum blonde hair of the Hollywood starlet and the
> grand piano, and they both hit bottom--at the same time? That needs to
> be telling you something. There's a song in it, that science has a
> head too full of jangling facts to hear."
>
> I didn't know about that, and said so: "Well, as I recall, it's all
> pretty well explained by Newton's laws, something about how the amount
> of weight in the grand piano as opposed to what's in the hair of
> Veronica Lake, is like, cancelled out . . . or, how's it go?"
>
> "Yeah, they would explain that it's harder for the piano to get
> moving, to get over its own inertia than it is for the hair with far
> less inertia."
>
> I set down my cup: "There's more inertia in the grand piano."
>
> "Yes and no. There's a problem in that thinking, which is part of the
> reason we're here talking about all this."
>
> I had to consider that over a bite of my sandwich, and when my mouth
> was almost empty enough, I said, "I would ask what you mean."
> --
> John http://jpdavid.freewebspace.com/
> http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/520b8/
>
> "Once when Sir Isaac Newton--a mere lad--got over into the man's apple
> orchard--I don't know what he was doing there--I didn't come all the
> way
> from Hartford to q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n Mr. Newton's honesty--but when he was
> there--in the main orchard--he saw an apple fall and he was
> a-t-t-racted
> toward it, and that led to the discovery--not of Mr. Newton (who got
> back
> over the fence quick enough) but of the great law of attraction and
> gravitation." --Mark Twain (if any bowdlerizing parenthesis may be
> pardoned
> or ignored)
>
>
>