mindhacks is having a good day, with an article on voodoo deaths, followed by one on play. Apparently when you play, you bend differently.

Hence the title of this post. Makes sense now, eh?

Socrates, The Phaedo.

Today I was told to stand away from the microwave.

It's been a long time since I've been warned of the dangers of microwaves. I think the last time I was about 7, & was advised that if I didn't step back right now, my babies would 'come out deformed'.

So incensed was my seven-year-old mind with the advice that I had to start living my life in the allowable boundaries provided by my unborn and unwanted children, that I took only half a step back and stood, staring defiantly not at my advisor (some dimwit hippy parent of a friend of mine, who peppered her house with instructions from the fridge door to the cupboards to the table to the chairs -- to 'sit up straight' and 'don't eat sweets in the afternoon' and 'say please', 'say thank-you' -- her children were strange and miserable, as you may've guessed) but at the microwave itself, the very thing that was meant to be deforming my ghost children already.

Half a step back, almost daring the microwave to bring it on, bring it ON!!

So far, I have not had deformed babies, nor indeed any babies at all, though this has nothing to do with microwaves.

Today's microwave warning came from someone who said simply, 'It's bad for your health.' And indeed, the microwave in question carries a sticker proclaiming it safe from a distance of thirty centimetres. Radiation Warning, it says, putting me instantly in mind of the ravages of radiation on the body of the Incredible Hulk -- my least favourite comic hero to date. Naturally I do not wish for the same fate! Today, ( I take two steps back. )

Well, there were — or maybe there are — a number of dead people out there. [Laughs] It's a very crowded place. There is a Beethoven and a Shakespeare and a Hitler and an entire family out there. But, fortunately, you don't have to go to Heaven to talk to some of them. A lot of them have left us amazing things on paper, and so their lives persist here anyway. Wonderful words. Beautiful music. Stunning things that resonate. I am, as we talk, quoting Shakespeare. I'm writing about the death of eloquence. Eloquence was so ordinary back then, in the time of Shakespeare.
[snip]
I just don't think people get off on language anymore. Language used to be an elevated art. It used to be for people what music can be. But people don't learn to do that anymore, so eloquence is merely a matter of waste now. Who needs a good vocabulary and proper English? Eloquence — it's dead and who needs it?
-- Kurt Vonnegut