DAILY PHOTO: Sundown Light, Bhaktapur
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Author Archives: B Gourley
Brass Monkey
the brass monkey seemed real -- not like a real monkey, but like a real supplicant, making a real offering i guess its realness was the realness of human wishfulness it looked real because it looked like what a human desires in a monkey -- rather than how an actual monkey would behave, hightailing it with the fruit up to too lofty a height to have its jackfruit repossessed i read that the original "brass monkey" was a cannonball rack on an old-timey sailing ship, then the term came to refer to cold weather, because the differential contraction of cold metal would cause the cannonballs to pop off the rack -- hence the saying: "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!" and, somewhere along the way, it also became a low-brow malt liquor cocktail seems strange that so many brass monkeys would exist that weren't monkey-shaped, or even made of brass -- but such is the way of words
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Moon Viewing [Haiku]
DAILY PHOTO: Buffalo Bayou w/ Buildings
Falling Leaf [Haibun]
A leaf falls, spinning as it drifts downward. Then, for an instant, it seems to pause in the air before continuing to drop, twist, and flutter. I question whether the leaf stopped, my mind stopped, or the universe stopped. Probably, nothing stopped -- a mere momentary balance of updraft and gravitational pull, an unstable and ephemeral equilibrium, like a spontaneous retention of breath -- usually missed before it can be noticed, but just this one time, I was witness. a falling leaf seems to pause in air, and I am there
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Long Gone Frog [Haiku]
DAILY PHOTO: Scenes from Humboldt Park
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BOOK REVIEW: Proust & the Squid by Maryanne Wolf
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne WolfMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Time to get meta, and do some reading about reading. Wolf’s book explores the neuroscience of reading, the evolution of writing systems, and what keeps some children from learning to read as rapidly as most. If you’re wonder about the seemingly arcane title, Proust’s essay “On Reading” planted a seed of thought that would become this book. The squid bit reflects the aquatic creature’s famous neurological adaptability, which is also witnessed in the learning human brain. Reading as both a mystic experience and as the unanticipated consequence of an extremely plastic brain are among the book’s recurring themes.
Another recurring idea is that reading has a cost. This view was famously expressed by Socrates, who believed reading would contribute to diminished memory, intellectual laziness, and other problems. Wolf reflects upon Socrates’ criticisms, but also draws a parallel between Socrates’ ideas on the subject and the present-day argument that the internet / social media is driving us inexorably and inevitably toward an “Idiocracy” type world.
The parts of the book that deal with the neuroscience of reading do get a bit complicated. It would be hard for them not to as reading is a complex task unfolding within the most complex system that we know of. However, wouldn’t say that this book is any more dense or incomprehensible than most pop neuroscience books – especially as it’s mixed in with less challenging material.
My understanding of dyslexia (Ch. 7 & 8) grew considerably while reading this book. I learned that it isn’t a unitary affliction, but can come about at any of a number of cognitive tasks that have to transpire during reading.
If you’re interested in how humanity learned to read, the benefits and costs of this capacity, and what dyslexia really is, this book is definitely worth reading.
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Blood Creek [Haiku]
blood drips from an unmoving finger into the clear creek
