Monday, November 02, 2015

Moon and Stendhal Syndrome ...

 “I walk the line between the visible and the invisible; what more could you ask for?"

An existential lesson gleaned from a brush with death and foolishness.


At Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, in Florence, the staff is used to patients' complaining of short breath, panic attacks, and hallucinations. They call it Stendhal Syndrome  »

I often think of Nabokov. When Fyodor, ventriloquizing his creator, says in The Gift, “You see, the way I look at it, there are only two kinds of books: bedside and wastebasket. Either I love a writer fervently, or throw him out entirely,” we ought to remember Koncheyev’s reply:  “With such quantitative scantiness we must resign ourselves to the fact that our Pegasus is piebald, that not everything about a bad writer is bad, and not all about a good one good.” Koncheyev’s counsel is sound, regardless of how badly we are tempted to second Fyodor’s judgment. How much time should we devote to looking for the good or passable in the lousy or mediocre? When has a reader fulfilled his obligation to a writer? I don’t expect an answer. I’m jealous of my time and prefer not to squander on the second-rate or worse. After a lifetime of concerted reading, I should be able to trust my judgment and not be beholding to fashion, whim or my own laziest failings.
Moon Over Capertee
Talk Therapy Found to Ease Schizophrenia New York Times. This is a big deal.

According to The Straists Times, when the woman’s water broke and she was told to lie down and prepare for delivery, Ms Chen claimed Jian insisted she would give birth later and repeatedly asked those around her: “Are we in US airspace yet?”





koala_300

Abrupt changes in food chains predicted as Southern Ocean acidifies fast: study Sydney Morning Herald (Chuck L). The jackpot is nigh….