Prehistoric Fix

Cryptoberyx is an extinct genus of prehistoric bony fish that lived during the Cenomanian.

The equipartition theorem is a general formula that relates the temperature of a system with its average energies. The equipartition theorem is also known as the law of equipartition, equipartition of energy, or simply equipartition. The original idea of equipartition was that, in thermal equilibrium, energy is shared equally among all of its various forms; for example, the average kinetic energy per degree of freedom in the translational motion of a molecule should equal that of its rotational motions.

What I like about these two new things/words I learned -- apart from the prefixes which I lovadore - is that despite the appearance of modernity and novelty and high-techness shown by the equipartitioned particles, that's actually way older and more prehistoric than the prehistoric fish.  All these animations and models showing the Universe and how it started and how it works?  It fascinates me how they give me the impression, momentarily, that it's all new and shiny, airbrushed and laminated, when in fact it is the v opposite-- and fossils are newer than stars!  

Base Words Are Uttered

   Base words are uttered only by the base

And can for such at once be understood,

But noble platitudes:--ah, there's a case

Where the most careful scrutiny is needed

To tell a voice that's genuinely good

From one that's base but merely has succeeded. 

WH Auden 

Invidia

Gericault, Portrait of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy c. 1822

"What Nietzsche and Freud share is the idea that justice as equality is founded on envy--on the envy of the Other who has what we do not have, and who enjoys it. The demand for justice is thus ultimately the demand that the excessive enjoyment of the Other should be curtailed so that everyone's access to enjoyment is equal." 

Žižek, Violence (Picador, 2008), p. 89


Yes I'm happy with this definition of envy, and think it isn't talked about enough. However, it needs to be contrasted with jealousy, so all the by-products of one and of the other can be exposed. Invidia bifurcates.  We look at the root of the word in Latin and it quickly becomes apparent that it stems from another word.  Going backwards:  invidia from invedere (regard maliciously), from in- (=into) + videre (= to see).  


I read further.

"An evil person is thus not an egotist, 'thinking only about his own interests.' A true egotist is too busy taking care of his own good to have time to cause misfortune to others. The primary vice of a bad person is precisely that he is more preoccupied with others than with himself."

Žižek, Violence (Picador, 2008), p. 92


True.  This point is v important and ppl often neglect the implications of true egotism, or selfishness. Then:

"Here is why egalitarianism itself should never be accepted at its face value: the notion (and practice) of egalitarian justice, insofar as it is sustained by envy, relies on the inversion of the standard renunciation accomplished to benefit others: 'I am ready to renounce it, so that others will (also) NOT be able to have it!' Far from being opposed to the spirit of sacrifice, evil here emerges as the very spirit of sacrifice, ready to ignore one's own well being--if, through my sacrifice, I can deprive the Other of his enjoyment..."

Žižek, Violence (Picador, 2008), p. 92


But Slavoj, aren't you dodging v important factors?  Two, off the top of my head.  Namely:


1) The possibility egalitarianism and enjoyment can be levelled up. I don't deny the very real fact that if there are two ppl and one of them is cheerful and the other isn't, it gets complicated to see how both can be equally joyful, given the positive energy will come from one individual and the other will absorb it, therefore each person ends up with less energy than existed before it was divided in two; however, it is also possible that multiplication will arise from the division.  Now, with more positive energy than he had at the beginning of the equation, SadIndividual may turn into CheerfulIndividual and start to produce his own positive energy, enough to give some back to the person who was already joyful, increasing the product.  It's a possible interpretation of the Parable of the Talents, no?  Multiply the initial natural resource, and;


2) It is problematic to isolate envy without contrasting it to jealousy, because one crucial element gets lost in the analysis of only one concept.
I agree envy is characterized primarily by not only the desire to have a quality or a thing the Other possesses but also, and, more importantly, by wanting to take it away from the Other so that no one has it in the end.  "If I can't have it, I don't want you to have it either."  It's a framework where everyone loses.
However, the missing element must be inserted into the equation precisely because I believe that once it is brought to light, the likelihood envy will turn into jealousy is encouraging.


If one starts from the premise that jealousy is characterized by the desire to possess something one doesn't yet have, without the added factor of wanting the Other to lose it, one reaches the conclusion that the dispossessed may end up achieving the object of his covetous thoughts.  Coveting isn't necessarily bad-- it may become negative if one crosses the line into envy.


Envious ppl could experience a positive transition into jealousy if they considered the following:


a) If the object of my envy loses what it possesses, the world becomes poorer and poorer, until, in the end, if my wishes are granted, I won't even have anything to be envious of, since no one will have anything worthy of my envy;


b) I, too, can have what I envy, within reason, if I apply myself and take the paths which lead to it;


c) Envy is stupid: what the envious person fails to perceive is that he who observes a quality has the perspicacity, the sensibility, the intelligence, the emotional resources to look at it and make an assessment of it, to see it, to value it for what it is.  The reader, the spectator, the listener is as responsible for the elevation or recognition of something as the person who created it or has it.  If I look at Magritte and see nothing, I have no reason at all to be jealous/envious.  If I see how stupendous it is, some of the credit goes to me, too!  Magritte wouldn't exist if no one could see his talent, and appreciate his art.  So envious ppl only need think this through.  They're underestimating their own capacity to identify quality, beauty, value.


Slavoj, I'd like to know what you'd say to this, but I don't think you read my blog.  I know you wouldn't be envious, though. 

Ghost Town

While July & August is the high season for tourism in Paris, the city can give off an eerie vibe at times during these months.

Those Parisians who are lucky or well-off enough leave town for several weeks; several shops close, including bakeries and a few restaurants; those who remain in the city go to work normally, but one phone call to a bank or services of that type reveals to those who went nowhere that while ppl may be at work, not much is getting done. I guess they resent the fact most of their friends are away on holiday.

Many buildings undergo renovation, so any hopes of a quiet month are quickly dashed by the noise of hammers, concrete breakers and all manner of electric tools, starting as early as 8 AM.

Until about 11AM there are very few ppl out- the tourists start appearing at lunch time, having spent the morning in a museum or visiting a monument.  

The cinema is usually three-quarters empty, and only places favoured by tourists continue to have seemingly eternal queues.

The obvious aside, what strikes me every year around this time, if I don't travel anywhere, is how even residential buildings seem to take on a different appearance.

I walk around this district daily, and look at the buildings at different times of day/year and in different weather.  It isn't always I notice these things but last week it struck me how one building in specific seemed to have sprouted out of nowhere, as if it'd been made invisible by magic during the year and, when there aren't locals around, it shows itself- to no one.  Because the tourists can't compare how it looks now to how it looks the rest of the year, since they're, well, not here.  Yknow those scenes in cartoons/films where the protagonist looks and the object disappears and reappears as soon as he looks away? Like that.

I took a few photos; it caught my attention for one main reason.  Somehow, when I looked at it, the first thing that came to mind was the myth of the lost continent of Atlantis, and when I stood and observed the building, I started to see marine-like features in it that I hadn't previously appreciated.  From now on I think of this as the Atlantis building.

Doesn't this awning remind you of an upside-down seashell?

Square, symmetrical, magnificent

I like the aqua paint very much

Trellised gates/windows are so pretty, it's like lace or a coral reef- I wish contemporary buildings still integrated them. Superb crafsmanship.

Again the acqua on the tile with the building number...

...which I find mega charming, like the arum lily sculpted in the stone 

These big square windows remind me of fishtanks. I have the impression I'll see an octopus swimming inside at any moment

Maybe it's simple suggestion, maybe it's the colours the ironwork is painted, giving it a sort of "slimy" or covered by water and sea air, sea smell, sea breeeze feel, which corrodes and oxidizes, rusts.  I like how bronze turns a blueish green when it oxidizes, and this building has that feature which is mainly present in old monuments and bronze sculptures sprinkled evenly around Euro cities.  But here, this look is achieved solely with paint. 

The plants on the balconies contribute to the feeling that Spongebob Squarepants lives there.  It makes it look like a building underwater, in a world where humans are amphibian. 

Verily

Manus hæc inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem

Blink, and what?

Spiralling Into Control

It is so much fun for me when an expression we use almost daily confronts a completely different symbology in art.  

Philosophe en meditation, Rembrandt

Philosophe au livre ouvert, Koninck

Both painters juxtaposed the spiral staircases with the philosophers "at work".  Both philosophers are at the bottom of the upward spiral, suggesting thought at its inception; I like this.  The idea that they'll eventually work their way to the top, that the philosophical inquiry will lead them to a higher plane or stage, is elegantly present.  These men are on an upward spiral.

The Astronomer, Vermeer

Curiously, then, Vermeer's astronomer is not looking up, but at his "celestial globe".  I can't find a good reason why this should be, even if the theme is scientific focus, couldn't he have been looking up, at least?

C'est-Noise-O-Ick Era

Twice a week, the recycling trucks from the city of Paris collect glass from the recycling bin each building has or can have.  There are about twenty such bins which belong to the buildings on either side and across the street from mine.

Twice a week, at 7AM, sometimes still in bed, I can hear the supersonic (or so it seems) truck making its way down my street, starting at the farther end from me and slowly making its way closer and closer, collecting each bin it finds on the pavement, one by excrutiating one.

When the contents of the first bin begin to fall in the hold of the truck, my brain lets out a small shriek which vaguely says "get me as far away from this as possible, now!," so I get up, which-- believe it or not-- doesn't help.  

When the truck is right in front of my building, the noise is so loud and appalling that it becomes almost sublime; then, my brain seems to be saying in a low voice coming out of the haze of a champagne-tobacco pipe: "I believe it's raining Kryptonite."

Constant loud noise is one of the more unpleasant factors one must deal with when living in such a densely populated city.  Neighbours screaming, yippie dogs barking in the flat next door, ppl who still haven't grasped that the point of a telephone is that you don't need to scream to be heard (worse when it's in public transport and the offender is right next to you), drivers who don't understand that honking their horns will not make the aforementioned recycling truck go faster, ppl who are under the impression we all would like nothing better than to share in the pleasure of their milibellian car stereo, etc.

One of my friends claims to have once killed a cockroach by screaming v loudly at it for a quarter of an hour, give or take  (who timed it? I'd love to know).  I didn't think that was possible, because, if I'm honest, I'm not sure cockroaches can hear, or if they have ears, even; but if they do, I now think it is entirely believable.

Bonnard

Nu Dans le Bain

Dizygotic

"What does the ideogram on your shower curtain say?"

Mondrian, 1918

"No idea."

Sumerian Cuneiform alphabet, 1000 B.C.

Promiscuity

Today I want to write about a topic that interests me a great deal, because I live it daily and it has an impact on my life and those around me.

Living in France and being constantly between English and French (English at home, French outside), one comes into contact with many accidental jokes and examples of that morphological and syntactical category when one is learning or speaking a second language: the false friend, or, in French, faux amis.

English was extensively influenced by the French language and, over the centuries, many words see their semantic value change -- sometimes drastically-- giving rise to a significant number of misunderstandings, several of them hilarious.

Between Portuguese and Spanish, we have such examples as well (i.e. embarazada- pregnant in Spanish, embarrassed in Portuguese), and these shifts can occur even within two varieties of the same language (i.e. fila: line or queue in Brazilian Port but gay in Portuguese Port).

The fun comes when one is certain a word in the Target Language means the same as it does in the Source Language (when it doesn't), so that it is inserted in a formal way, and when a native speaker comes across the word in a phrase or sentence, s/he is utterly perplexed.

I enjoy collecting these examples, and recently I was told about one I had never heard about. It might be the best instance of Linguistic False Friendship I ever came across. 

Most people in Paris live in promiscuity. At least they think they do.

   

When a native English speaker hears this, as was the case with a friend of mine recently, she becomes concerned, especially when the context involves children.  She was told her friend had people over, people with lots of kids, and they had to put the kids in the same bedroom, which, according to her, caused a lot of "promiscuity".    

Concise Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary © 2009 Oxford University Press:

promiscuité /pʀɔmiskɥite/

feminine noun

lack of privacy.

This is the first meaning of the word in French!

Here's another fav of mine (English/Dutch False Friend):

"Mom, that one, that one, that one..."

I love false friends.