Back in September 2011, Walhydra was reading Mort, the fourth volume of Terry Pratchett's brilliant Discworld Series. (She thinks it's the fourth...time is weird on Discworld. She's already read The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic, and Equal Rites.)
Walhydra likes pretty much everything about the Discworld books, but her favorite character so far is—surprise, surprise—Death. Or should we say DEATH, since he always speaks in upper case, without quotation marks? He always appears as a hooded, animated skeleton with glowing eyes.
What Walhydra admires most about Death is his attitude toward...um...death.
As far as Death is concerned, death is not some sort of evil consequence or punishment for mortals. It's just his job. All mortals die, and Death's job is to help them finish the business.
It's the mortals who, clinging to their lives, label death as "evil," as "punishment." Poor Death struggles with the unfair blame...though he always rises above it.
The title character in Mort is a young mortal whom Death takes on as an apprentice.
"Er," [Mort] began. "I don't have to die to get the job, do I?"
BEING DEAD IS NOT COMPULSORY.
"And...the bones...?"
NOT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO. (12-13)
Death leads Mort to the great twin city of Ankh-Morpork, where they stop for a meal at the Curry Garden. The place is crowded, "but only with the cream of society—at least, with those people who are found foating on the top and who, therefore, it's wisest to call the cream." (19)
Mort is puzzled by the fact that, besides himself, no one seems to see Death.
"Is it magic?" said Mort.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? said Death. AM I REALLY HERE, BOY?
"Yes," said Mort slowly. "I...I've watched people. They look at you but they don't see you, I think. You do something to their minds."
Death shook his head.
THEY DO IT ALL THEMSELVES, he said. THERE'S NO MAGIC. PEOPLE CAN'T SEE ME, THEY SIMPLY WON'T ALLOW THEMSELVES TO DO IT. UNTIL IT'S TIME, OF COURSE. WIZARDS CAN SEE ME, AND CATS. BUT YOUR AVERAGE HUMAN...NO, NEVER.
He blew a smoke ring at the sky, and added, STRANGE BUT TRUE. (20)
Pretty much sums it up.
And so it is.
Blessèd be.
Here is a beautiful portrait of Terry Pratchett and Death, done by Flynn-the-Cat and posted on DeviantArt and RedBubble.
Flynn's own commentary on the portrait:
A portrait of Terry Pratchett, his Death and his Discworld.
He's the creator of the Discworld, that little planet being carried away into space by the turtle Great A'Tuin, with the sun setting on it.
Death, the walking skeleton with an awful lot of character appears in all his books (however briefly) and spends a lot of time trying to figure people out. he's here because a) it's about dying (mental, age, possible-suicide), b) he's kinda a reflection of people (he is shaped by their expectations, so he's in mirror image to Pterry, c) he's one of Pterry's greater legacies, and d)... well, if anyone outlives the Discworld, it'll be Death.
The lilacs were worn in memory of a revolution in Night Watch and are now the symbol of Wear the Lilac Day on May 25th - Discworld Day, and now dedicated to Alzheimer's Awareness.
Because—oh yes, Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's Disease. And I started painting this while listening to his documentary on assisted dying: Terry Pratchett: Choosing To Die.
Here's a link to a new Terry Pratchett interview on the Late, Late Show, and a link to an NPR interview in August 2011.
Terry's own website is here.
Florida is continuing to have weird weather—as is the rest of the world—but DON'T say climate change!
When Jim and I moved from SC to FL in 2000, that first winter was so cold in our beautiful yet poorly insulated 1917 duplex that we had to close off the bedroom at night and keep the cat with us to stay warm.
Now we get a few cold days of winter—and my brother in Western Massachusetts had almost no snow—almost none, that is, after the powerful nor'easter in late October in which three people died and at least 700,000 lost power.
We have also noticed in recent years that the first sign of spring in Northeast Florida is the smell of smoke. That's because GA and FL are in an ongoing drought, and the water levels in the Okefenokee Swamp and the Everglades are too low to stop Florida wildfires from lightning-strikes and other causes.
(Florida is developing itself to death...but DON'T say climate change.)
Finally, it's normal in NE Florida to have late winter through spring temperature swings from the 50s to the 80s or 90s and back, but this week is a bit late for a drop back to the 60s (comfortable as that is).
In any case, we had lots of welcome rain in the last few weeks, and there was a nice overnight storm leading up to Sunday, April 1st.
The rain left this interesting though cryptic message on the back stoop where I sometimes spend my time off.
Blessèd be,
Michael
A friend of mine who is a former Floridian sent me the following testimony:
We arrived in Florida in 1978, and I can tell you—the climate has changed indeed. It used to rain every afternoon—rain that was much needed in a subtropical area....
Florida [had] a delicate ecosystem, and really wasn't designed for human habitation..., because it originally consisted of a sultry, humid swamp. It was so hostile to human habitation that Native Americans fled to Florida to evade the white man's onslaught....
[But Florida had] a wonderful system devised by nature itself. Lake Okeechobee and that "River of Grass," the Everglades, would evaporate to a certain extent, giving off enough moisture to form rain clouds that would gather and flow up north where the rains would fill the rivers, which in turn would flow south to refill Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.
The aquifers served as a natural filter. You couldn't get any better system of potable water than that.
Until development reared its ugly head [and] Jeb Bush took the reins, destroying this beautiful ecosystem with his massive, uncontrolled development, including highway construction.
Now a land that was once a swamp, is becoming a desert, plagued by wild fires. And potable water is so scarce, Tampa has to use desalinated water from its expensive desalination plant it built on the Gulf of Mexico.
Ah, civilization!
OMG. R. Land now has a website for perhaps his most famous work of comic art, the Loss Cat poster.
Foam.
On today's post of 3 Quarks Daily, I just learned that Adrienne Rich has died.
Here is an article in today's Los Angeles Times:
Adrienne Rich, a pioneering feminist poet and essayist who challenged what she considered to be the myths of the American dream, has died. She was 82.
When I was coming out in the mid-1970s, her poetry, and especially her book Of Woman Born, were pivotal in giving me a feminist perspective on my own gayness and on the gender roles of all men and women.
Now, as we all do, she has died.
3 Quarks Daily posted one of her most powerful poems, "To keep the death of the poet from her poems...."
And so it is.
Blessèd be,
Michael
See here for the whole story.
Oops!
Fortunately, hitchhiker72 writes in his blog that there can be pluses this time:
Mercury retrograde is cycling back through Fire and Water signs this year, creating the potential for … steam! Use it to power engines, but don’t get scalded.
12 March to 4 April 2012, 6+° Aries to 23+° Pisces
14 to 8 August 2012, 12+° to 1+° Leo
6 to 26 November 2012, 4+° Sagittarius to 18+° Scorpio
Mercury is currently stationing retrograde in Aries, a Fire sign.
It is close enough to Uranus for any volatility to be amplified, but also the potential for ‘out of the box’ thinking and problem-solving.
So there may be the opportunity to revisit old problems and come up with creative new solutions, once you’ve sidestepped all the delays and technical glitches!
One can hope.
An excellent pair from Jesus and Mo comics, originally posted in 2007.
:-)
