Niagara Falls and Toronto Trip: The Ontario Science Centre

Rather than engage in creative writing or play computer games, I suppose I will write the first post about my trip (in response to Kay's insistence on this).

On Wednesday, Jon, Teddy*, Roz*, and I (all floormates from first year of university) went to the Ontario Science Center. I had heard from Jon the day before that Teddy was exceptionally excited about everything that week--Ted had been staying at Jon's and being a tourist since the Saturday before--and we saw ample evidence of this at the Science Centre. As we went from one room to another, Ted would run ahead of us, and then come back and stare at us as though wondering why we took so long. He was like a kid. In fact, all week Jon got nervous whenever Ted left his sight. Roz was also silly in a controlled way some of the time.

Anyway, on to the details... I will get the order of the exhibits wrong, but I'm sure you can manage.

My experiences with a pseudo-tornado earlier in the week came flashing back when we saw the mist-tornado at the Centre. It was quite interesting; we got lots of pictures. Apparently waving your hand through it sometimes breaks it up, but I didn't experience that: when I put my hand through it, it stayed about the same. I wonder what the misty-substance was. Dry ice? Watery mist? Not sure.

One of the temporary exhibits when we visited was a spy exhibit. Some of it was sort of kiddie, but other parts were fun. At one point, there was a big wooden crate which had warnings and 'use gloves' and 'have flea powder ready' and pictures of big cats stenciled on the sides. It also had a whole in the side with a flap. The others wouldn't put their hands in. I did, though I can assure you that I pulled back a little at one point. Here's the funny thing: when I heard the purring/growling start, I thought for a second that if it were a live lion and it clawed my hand off, it would have been worth it just to pet one.

The spy exhibit also showed lots of spy gear and had assorted games you could play. There were facial recognition scans and all sorts of cool stuff. There was a large prosthetic leg which could be switched between a repelling hook and line, a shoe and leg, and a large metallic tentacle. If I ever lose a leg, I want one of those suckers. It would be awesome.

There were cases of bright poison dart frogs. I struggled to get a good picture of one. My efforts were thwarted somewhat by Jon insisting I come over to the waterfall for a picture right at that moment.

There was also a robo-fish that ran on solar power. More accurately, there were assorted types of solar-power run robo-fish, based on the movements of real fish. If you put your hands on the case so your shadow covered the solar panels, they'd stop swimming.

There was an exhibit about Middle Eastern science. I had known some of it already, but I was generally happy that they acknowledged that the Islamicate Empire made considerable scientific advancements as a part of their religious practices. Did you know that while Europe was suffering from malnutrition and thought that disease came from swamp air, a man in what is now Iraq was performing the first eye cararact surgery? For some reason, though, they included the boat of Zheng He, who was Chinese, not Middle Eastern. Still cool.

In another room, there were assorted optical illusions and sound or frequency tricks. One used angles and false optical cues, in conjuction with the two-dimensionality of a camera, to make people appear different sizes on a screen. Roz became far taller than she has been before, while Teddy became far smaller.

In the same room, Ted made weird loud noises like a heron or egret to vibrate strings. We all got videos, but Jon's has the best sound. Whenever Jon needed a laugh, he's play the video. He'd chuckle for ten minutes after that.

One of the more note-worthy exhibits (at least to my mind) was the face-fusion one. The exhibit uses semi-reflective but transparent glass. Like any other one-way glass, it depends largely on the comparative light levels on either side of the pane. On each side of the 'mirror' in this exhibit was a seat and lights arranged as in one of those mirrors for doing make-up. You could adjust the light levels on either side, changing the transparency. If the light was the same on either side, then what you saw on the glass was a 50/50 blend of transparency and reflection, or what was on your side or the other side. If you get a person sitting on each chair, and if the people line up their faces and adjust the lights, their faces 'fuse.'
Roz and I did this. (Roz is a girl.) We did it twice, actually, to see if the effect was different depending which side we sat on. Once I wore glasses and once I did not. The effect was bizarre. Actual, I might want to use the word 'uncanny,' because it was both familiar and unfamiliar. I could recognize myself in the reflection and I could recognize Roz. The strangest part was in the eyes and the brow, which blended most. Also, when Roz moved her mouth to speak, it seemed as though her teeth appeared and disappeared from my mouth. As we played with the levels, she said it looked at one point as though she was wearing glasses and had my ears poking out from her own (our heads are different sizes). I which we had a picture of it, but, alas, I didn't think to get one. Ted and Jon did it, and Ted said they looked like a monkey.

At the end we saw an IMAX movie about the Alps. Not much to say there. We also meandered through the gift shop, but bought nothing.

Oh! Nearly forgot! We saw raccoons which were surprisingly tame in a bird-watching area. They were cute big fellas (or ladies, possibly), notwithstanding what the kids thought.

That is all for now. Later, I will tell you about Niagara Falls--the Casino, the haunted house, the hotel, and the Falls themselves--and about the miscellaneous adventures we went on around Toronto.

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*Names have not been changed due to general laziness.

Mandeville

Have you ever heard of Mandeville?

He's a semi- or entirely fictitious mediaeval English knight who did not go on a voyage across the world, though a mediaeval author wrote an evidentally fictional but professedly autobiographical narrative in which he does. It fits in the travel narrative conventions of its time, complete with a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, savage races and lavish sultanates, distant empires, fabulous beasts, mysterious islands, dangerous wastes, and, eventually, Paradise itself. If you've read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, you would recognize some of the locations Mandeville visits. Any narrative about people who've sailed to marvelous lands reach back to narratives like Mandeville's and Marco Polo's (a rough contemporary).

Anyway, here is a sampling of the incredible things 'witnessed' by Mandeville on his travels:

"And he [the king of the isle Calonak] hath also into a 14,000 elephants or more that he maketh for to be brought up amongst his villians by all his towns. For in case that he had any war against any other king about him, then [he] maketh certain men of arms for to go up into the castles of tree made for the war, that craftily be set upon the elephants' backs, for to fight against their enemies. and so do other kings there-about. For the manner of war is not there as it is here or in other countries, ne the ordinance of war neither. And men clepe the elephants Warkes."

"After that isle [of Tracoda] men go by the sea ocean, by many isles, unto an isle that is clept Nacumera, that is a great isle and good and fair. And it is in compass about, more than a thousand mile. And all the men and women of that isle have hounds' heads, and they be clept Cynocephales. And they be full reasonable and of good understanding, save that they worship an ox for their God. And also every one of them beareth an ox of gold or of silver in his forehead, in token that they love well their God. And they go all naked save a little clout, that they cover with their knees and members. They be great folk and well-fighting. And they have a great targe that covereth all the body, and a spear in their hand to fight with. And if they take any man in battle, anon they eat him."

"In that country and others thereabout [that is, the island of Silha, which is filled with dangerous beasts called "cockodrills"] there be wild geese that have two heads. And there be lions, all white and as great as oxen, and many other diverse beasts and fowls also that be not seen amongst us."

"In one of these isles be folk of great stature, as giants. And they be hideous for to look upon. and they have but one eye, and that is in the middle of the front. And they eat nothing but raw flesh and raw fish.
"And in another isle toward the south dwell folk of foul stature and of cursed kind that have no heads. And their eyen be in their shoulders."
"...
"And in another isle there be little folk, as dwarfs. And they be two so much as the pigmies. and they have no mouthl but instead of their mouth they have a little round hole, and when they shall eat or drink, they take through a pipe or a pen or such a thing, and suck it in, for they have no tongue; and therefore they speak not, but they make a manner of hissing as an adder doth, and they make signs one to another as monks do, by the which every of them understandeth other.
"And in another isle be folk that have great ears and long, that hang down to their knees.
"And in another isle be folk that have horses' feet. And they be strong and mighty, and swift runners; for they take wild beasts with running, and eat them.
"And in another isle be folk that so upon their hands and their feet as beasts. And they be all skinned and feathered, and they will leap as lightly into trees, and from tree to tree, as it were squirrels or apes.
"And in another isle be folk that be both man and woman, and they have kind of that one and of that other. And they have one pap on the one side, and on that other none. And they have members of generation of man and woman, and they use both when they list, once that one, and another time that other. And they get children, when they use the member of man; and they bear children, when they use the member of woman.
"And in another isle be folk that go always upon their knees full marvellously. And at every pace that they go, it seemeth that they would fall. And they have in every foot eight toes.
"Many other diverse folk of diverse natures be there in other isles about, of the which it were too long to tell, and therefore I pass over shortly."

"In that country be white hens without feathers, but they bear white wool as sheep do here."

"In that country be many hippotaynes that dwell sometime in the water and sometime on the land. And they be half man and half horse, as I have said before. And they eat men when they may take them."

I think these are all marvellous. Note how he describes some of them; most are without judgement, and some are actually complimented. This is highly surprising, I think, from a mediaeval Christian author.

I tried to find the woodcuts that accompany my version of the text but, alas, could not.

Journal #9: Sidney, Jameson, and Bakhtin: A Chimæric Idea

The Lives of Amphibians and Chimæras:

Journal #9

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Sidney, Jameson, and Bahktin: A Chimæric Idea[1]

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I propose, in utter unfairness to the initial subjects, to create a chimæra of Sidney, Jameson, and Bakhtin--or more accurately, of their ideas.

First, from Sidney: "to teach and delight," and that the poet teaches the lessons of the moralist through examples (like the historian), but unlike the historian does not need to bend to real events. Instead, the poet creates examples specifically designed to teach those lessons--and delight while doing it.

Second, from Jameson: that aesthetic acts--pieces of art--solve social problems that are, in real life, unsolvable. (Jameson can keep his horizons; I don't want them.)

Third, from Bakhtin: that a text can hold many bickering voices within it, and that the critic shouldn't pick one and make it represent the work.

Already I suspect that Bakhtin and Sidney will disagree with one another, as one asserts a clear meaning from the author and the other asserts tha the reader will detect no direction at all--but then one was a poet and the other a novelist, one was on the defensive and the other on the offensive, and Bakhtin predicts disagreement anyway.

We learn from Sidney that a text ought to teach us, and to delight us in the process. The second may argue for aesthetics' inherent value but, practically speaking, we're more likely to remember the lessons of an enjoyable book than a boring one. Jameson builds one Sidney's ideas that fiction need not conform to historical events; instead, it can propose impossible solutions to unsolvable social problems. Finally, Bakhtin enters and makes things difficult. His voices debate; these may be the contradictions Jameson was talking about, but, unlike Jameson, he suggests that even within a text not all of the contradictions can be resolved. And thus we have the resulting text: intended to teach us and to offer idealistic solutions, but instead leaving us with a compilation of different and ultimately unreconciable viewpoints (after all, when one heteroglossic language is swallowed by the unitary language, another springs up to replace it--this situation a synthesis of Hercules' Hydra and Star Trek's Borg: both resistance and assimilation are futile). And how, the skeptic will argue, can such a mess of quarreling moral systems teach us anything?

I, for one, am not convinced that, because no single presented viewpoint is reliably truer than the others, there is nothing to learn from a text. The reader has a unique ability that the characters of each language in the text do not have, and that is to change perspective to a different language. We can hop from one to another; we can see from, or speak from, each voice. To a certain extent, we can learn from each voice, but we can also learn how to reconcile contradictions...but for this we turn to John Donne and to a new set of symbols, and so this topic must rest until the next entry.

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[1] I know that these names may mean nothing to a casual reader; I apologize for this. I think, though, that I summarize each sufficiently in the first four-five paragraphs that you should follow it easily enough. Sir Philip Sidney, "An Apology for Poetry." Fredric Jameson, "The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act." Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Discourse in the Novel.

Journal #4: Metaphysical Poets and the Chimæras of Perspective

The Lives of Amphibians and Chimæras:

Journal #4

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Metaphysical Poets and the Chimæras of Perspective

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Samuel Johnson, in his section on Cowley in Lives of the English Poets, characterizes metaphysical conceits as "the most heterogeneous ideas ... yoked by violence together," and he means it to be derogatory. Even though I have expressed an interest in mixed wit, concerning the comparison of both sound and sense, I must join T. S. Eliot in defending Donne and the other metaphysicals; the metaphysical conceit has given me great pleasure in the past and I think it is unworthy of this derision.

To my mind, the metaphysical conceit operates as a metaphor or analogy: the speaker uses an easily understood idea to illustrate the idea the speaker wants the audience to understand. The primary difference between a metaphysical conceit and a simile is that, in the conceit, the two parts are not 'like' or 'as' each other--or, at least, not on the surface. It requires a certain intellectual effort to understand the connection. This, perhaps, is what Johnson dislikes: that the effect is unnatural, not automatic, and difficult.

I would argue that hard work reaps better rewards. Not only is the reader flushed with the satisfaction of having solved some wrinkle in 'Elegy 19'--which may be reward in itself--but the reader is given new perspective. For instance, Donne dances on the edge of heresy in Holy Sonnet 18; he likens the church to an adulterous wife and says the most adulterous church is best. A simpler metaphor would be saying that a church is like a [holy] host: the more open to guests, the better. But this will tell us nothing new; only when he changes the understanding of 'open', and plays with the idea of the Church being Christ's bride do we get this new perspective. The idea of ownership of conquest of a woman is challenged in this sonnet--if a woman is like a church, then she cannot be owned by any one person, or, for that matter, any person at all. Thus the metaphysical conceit, in its complexity, forces the puzzler to re-examine those relationships hitherto assumed to be 'simple.'

The heterogeneous nature of the ideas give yet another advantage, and that is fascination. The Greeks had a monster called a Chimæra[1] which operated on the same principle: a lion, a goat, and a dragon were all bundled violently and uncooperatively into a single beast. The Greeks had many similar creatures--centuars, harpies, sphinxes--and the Egyptians worshipped others--Anubis, Horus, Hathor. These beings are powerful because they are memorable, and they are memorable because they are unnatural and shocking: we cannot tear them from our mind. The metaphysical conceit is similar. The very unnatural, at times heretical, union of ideas fascinates us, and we find that we are unwilling to let go until we have figured out exactly how they work. Thus, I remember Donne's poetry and forget Johnson's. The metaphysical conceit provides both a changed perspective and a fascination that gives it more power than a simile.

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[1] I use the 'æ' intentionally to emphasize the conjoining of disparate elements. This is less 'sense' and more 'sound' (or sight): I could also say that it is an æsthetic decision, but that would just be silly.

Vesper of Mythology

Did You come to see me last night
in a dream?
I dreamt of many things
between the churning of buried thoughts amid the sheets
and my alarm clock’s clarion buzz
I did not recognize You among them
but You might have been there nonetheless

Last night I dreamt of her before I slept
last night I rolled with my burdens in my bed
last night I sprawled on my trove of ambitions
before I surrendered

Somewhere between the light shutting off and the cold cereal
I climbed a hill
passed grandparents prime ministers and pharaohs
dragging a stone slab behind me
staggering to a peak obscured in cloud
that rained ash and sulphur and the smell of oil

Last night I dreamt of her before I went to sleep
Not by her latest name
she has been unchristened
she is not forgiven fruit
and she follows wanderers in the desert

Somewhere between the pillow’s collapse and consciousness’ rush
As I scaled the mount
I witnessed a fierce wolf with galactic jaws
chained next to a knifing river with a ribbon formed
of a spirit’s spittle a seraph’s footfall and a ghost’s breath
ripping a dwarf star with its teeth

Last night I dreamt of trouble before I went to sleep
My lies’ feather weighs heavily against my heart
as the jury of my peers
imagines my trial
and I concoct an alibi for every faith and each infidelity

Somewhere beneath the bat’s first fall and the fresh socks
while I ascend the rock
a woman approaches with a fair face
but for the right half’s cadaverous pucker
the locks of seething hooded snakes
and her tail’s scorpion whip

Last night I dreamt of power before I went to sleep
From an obsidian tower I commanded
a babbling multitude
an army of rats with claxon pipes
and jealously drummed a monolithic name

Somewhere between my glasses’ encasement and my legs’ resurrection
I broke beneath the world on my shoulders
I gave up my load and the black mist entombed me
In the fog I saw my forebears divide
the hound retch up the sun
and the woman’s faces petrify each other

And my eyes opened to the sun

Until tomorrow night’s old miseries




I don't even understand what half of this means. I get most of it, but I'm sure not going to suggest it's supposed to be accessible. It's not a Hymn of Confusion, though it might be confusing. And it is pious . . . it's just really dark. Not what I usually write.

If you're looking for what inspired this nightmare (though it ends well, technically), see T. S. Elliot, Greek myth, Norse myth, Egyptian myth, Milton's PL, Biblical tradition, and fairy tales. But don't try too hard.

I don't even know what I'm supposed to make of this.

The House on the Corner: Short Fiction

It was not made of gingerbread. Icing did not mortar its walls, nor did flat slabs of chocolate compose the walk to the porch. Dutch lquorice door knobs did not sit in a raisin-oatmeal foor. Neither did mint ivy cover candy cane posts and a gumdrop-tiled roof.

It had no turrets. The sky above it was not stormy, nor did a pale full moon illuminate it. Bats may have lurked in its eaves, but none chose to dine on human blood. Tombstones did not decorate the yard, and that yard was not fanced by iron fate nor sinister hedge.

But there was a cat.



I heard that charities were a good way to meet people. Girls, actually, were the people charities were good for meeting, but I was not looking to meet girls, or that is what I told myself.

Lei and I were assigned as partners. She had been quiet, but she opened once we got away from the group and on our own. I had noticed the way her jeans fit, and the way her black hair hung. She was a little too enthusiastic.

We were given a section of the surrounding residential area to canvas. It was poor, and proceeds to the Green Corridor Raffle were lower than we desired. One older woman in an older home had taken care to keep the paint new and the roses blooming. The pines shading the porch were dignified. She bought the first two tickets. Most houses had yellow signs warning of large angry dogs, or proclamations that the inhabitants did not wish to be disturbed: Ye who solicit here, abandon all hope. My partner cooed and bubbled anyway.

It was late in the afternoon, and we had just been turned away from another door. I was ready to return home. Lei smiled before I could suggest it, though, and bet me dinner that the next one would buy a ticket. We walked on.

And there it crouched: the last house on the street. My first thought was that it deserved to be on some southern plantation, an old dead house left to moulder in the swamp. Its windows were glazed with yellow cataracts of curtains, set it tea-stained siding. The steps lolled from the veranda. Set back in the throat of the porch was the battered, screened door. The garden was not cultvated by any rational mind; thick stalks filled the soil, which they seemed to have won out of sheer ferocity.

I would have been cheered by the thought of Nature reclaiming its own had it not seemed so ruthless about it.

Lei and I looked at each other.

"It's creepy," she said.

"It is," I agreed.

A pause.

One of us moved forward first, but I cannot remember which.

We walked together up the splintered rocks of the path, stepping more carefully than necessary. I glanced past her into the trees clumped in the middle of the yard. Perhaps there would be squirrels shuffling in the grass, or sparrows quarrelling over breadcrumbs left by children. A cream-winged skipper flouncing across the breeze would have livened the scene a little, but there was no life.

"Look," Lei cried softly, pointing.

Lying on the bent stems of the flowerbed, was a cat. She frisked her tail at the tio, and stared at us. One ear flicked. She did not blink.

I smiled and stretched my arm out, half-bent at the knees. The cat responded with only another flick of the tail. She stared. Eventually, I turned my eyes away.

We continued to the porch, the familiar watching us all the while. Lei was the first to mount the steps, and I followed her up. Something smelled like it was rotting. I looked first to the flowerpots, but they were brimming with crazy, dangling spider plants. As I traveled the length of the porch, I saw from the corner of my eye that the window curtains did not fit tightly; in the gaps at the edges and the bottom, the rooms moved as though following my progress.

I held open the screen door, and Lei knocked on the chipped wooden one behind it.

Somehow I doubted the door would open. Images came unbidden to my mind: an old woman, collapsed on the floor inside her house. Her nightgown hitched oddly about her knees; one red plaid slipper clinging on and one fallen off. The rest of her was obscured in my imagination, entombed by the presence of the house.

Then another image: a woman opening the door, friendly and confused. A sweet little lady with an open purse and willing heart.

And then a coupling of the two, some grotesque chimaera: a dead woman opening the door, buzzing with flies and offering not a donation, but hellish knowledge.

I prayed that the door would stay closed.

Lei looked uncertainly my way.

I turned again to the windows, with some pretence of seeing if anyone was home. Either fear or prudence kept me from looking past the curtains and into the room, but I did examine what was placed on the sill. Bottles and jars of all kinds nested together. Some were corked, and others left open. Some had fancy paper labels, and others clothes only by tacky residue. One was filled with stale water; another, a festering plant; another, a few fly carcasses. Thick drifts of dust banked against them, and they were draped with cobwebs from departed and beneficent spiders.

"No one's answering," Lei finally said.

I nodded. "Let's go."

We turned, and I could feel her eye on our backs, gazing from the peep hole. I could feel her gawking from the windows, wondering how we would taste all fattened up, wondering what infernal secrets would drive us mad, wondering how many years the Devil would give her for our souls.

Down the steps we went, out from under the roof of that porch. The cat was there again, still looking, not blinking. She did not mew; perhaps she had sold her voice for the chance to go outdoors, except that it was the cat who stole children's tongues. She continued to spy for her mistress.

As we walked down the path, I noticed the scent of sulfur fade from the air, and perceived the attention from the house weaken. From the sidewalk, I turned and met the house's eye. She glared back.

"Maybe we should go get dinner," said Lei.

I wrote this for a class once. If anyone happens to recall the particular event on which this is based, I'm sure that person will understand the artistic liberties I took with this are exactly that--artistic. They mean nothing.