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A Tramp Abroad - Mark Twain
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 158
An amusing recount of Mark Twain's Continental adventures. He's a fair-reliable narrator, except for when he isn't, but always he does a fine send-up of the customs and people's being described.
A fair example is this recounting of his witnessing a "Duel":
Link: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/119/119-h/119-h.htm#p053
You can read the entire book on Gutenberg online, and - while my edition at nearly 500 pages was not shabby, it lacked the hundreds of illustrations. Anyways, travel literature, of a more recent vintage.
Sunday, Food Poisoning
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 161
Sunday, a delicious ly-in, the weather outside - well, cold, rainy, etc.
Wake up, arrange the "Studio", begin my experiments. They fail, which is why I'm doing them, a couple hours of putzing around to no effect, but I'm quick enough to wipe down the boards, need to arrange myself a little better and try again.
A bite of lunch, as I've been using the sink to wash away my paints I content myself with a Festive Shrimp Ring.
Work, peaceful, then, around 7:00 I begin to feel it. Stomach, off, cold, fever, hot, chills, smashing headache, an ague. I have one table, property developers of the "Hell-No" Nelson variety, talking, not eating, they're going nowhere.
And I'm getting worse. My back, tight lines across my lower back, painful, like I'm being stretched, my stomach...
I'm done, I make it to 9:00, 2 hours later and this table, they're looking a little upset I'm throwing them out, but damn...
Home, bed. I die. All night the ague, fever, chills, cold sweats, was it the Shrimp Ring? Or the sausages the day before? I don't know. Fever dreams, of nothing, cardboard, seeds from ash-trees, nothing substantive, disappearing. I'm half thinking - the pounding head, shortness of breath, strange pains in my back, that I'm in anaphylactic shock, it's the dose that makes the poison, after all...
Monday, day off, the same. I wake around 8:00, survive long enough to get a haircut, then home to bed. All day. I wake, briefly, try and read, give up, back to bed. The same dreams, of cardboard, of garbage, fleeting, there's nothing...
I wake, make a giant chicken soup, eat it, back to bed.
In the evening, better enough that I walk over to friends, sprawl on her sofa, watch TV, inane Netflix, I've discovered it's purpose.
Then home again, today, better, somewhat, I could go to bed again, but 28 hours sleep in the last 36, well, it better be enough, today's my long one.
If I weren't so close to death I'd chat a bit more, but, well, not now, not today.
Mary Antoinette's Pocket Watch
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Treasure
- Hits: 249
Read the history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Antoinette_(watch)
On display in Versailles.
Bregeut has always been one of my favourite horologists. This, combined with the provenance...
Consciousness might hide in our brain's electric fields
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 270
Via Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/consciousness-might-hide-in-our-brains-electric-fields/
Now, I've read a few of these theories, so just add this to the heap. While I certainly subscribe to the view that the entirety of our experience isn't contained within our body or heads, I haven't time to chase after every theory of everything that our consciousness hides in other dimensions, in quantum states, in the earth's magnetosphere, etc, etc. But it is something to think about.
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